WORKING PAPERS
Rulers, Revenues, and Runaways: The Political Economy of Extraction in Premodern States
Job Market Paper
Premodern rulers long extracted labor and other resources from their subjects, inducing many to flee. Despite the prevalence of this pattern, it raises a puzzle: why would rulers drive away the very subjects upon whom they depended for revenue? Contrary to existing accounts, I argue that such flight reflected not overextraction but a revenue-flight trade-off: lacking the capacity to prevent their subjects’ departures, rulers implicitly accepted some flight as the cost of imposing heavier burdens on those who remained. A simple model illustrates the theory’s logic, yielding three implications that I evaluate with evidence from the mining mita, a forced-labor institution in early colonial Peru. First, difference-in-differences estimates and historical evidence show that the mining mita induced indigenous peasants to flee. Second, an analysis of labor quotas reveals that demands were higher where peasants faced greater opportunity costs of flight. Third, a systematic review of official records shows that the Crown maintained the mita’s demands despite knowing that they induced outmigration. These findings identify flight as a routine consequence of premodern extraction.
WORKS IN PROGRESS
From Flight to Fight: State-Building and the Transformation of Popular Resistance
What explains variation in rebellion across time and place? This paper argues that the incidence of rebellion is shaped by opportunities for exit, which state-building reforms can restrict. Drawing on formal theory and evidence from Bourbon Peru, it shows that a reform limiting indigenous subjects’ ability to evade extraction increased rebellion, while the Spanish Crown strategically accepted this unrest as the cost of greater revenue.
Hidden Subjects: How Rugged Terrain Constrains State Extraction
How does rugged terrain affect state extraction? This paper argues that difficult geography constrains state control through a neglected mechanism: it enables subjects to hide from officials responsible for assessing tax obligations. Using quantitative and qualitative evidence from colonial Peru, it shows that indigenous communities in more rugged areas faced lower per capita tribute burdens, with historical records providing direct evidence of subjects concealing themselves during tax enumerations.
Commodity Booms and the Politics of Abolition: Evidence from Republican Peru
With Daniel Baquero and Iván San Miguel
What determines when governments abolish oppressive institutions? We argue that commodity booms can trigger intra-elite conflict, giving excluded factions incentives to mobilize mass support through policy concessions. We develop this argument in the context of republican Peru, where opposition leader Ramón Castilla abolished indigenous tribute and slavery to rally popular backing for his rebellion against the guano-enriched government.