Researches

Old essay

PRELIMINARY AND INCOMPLETE VERSION: A Historical Geographic Information System of the Grandes Gabelles in Early Modern France. Abstract This note presents the development of a parish-level historical geographic information system (GIS) for the seventeenth-century French salt tax system of the gabelles based using an original manuscript map collection from 1665: Sanson’s Atlas des gabelles.

On the one hand, a high level of military skill among the population is necessary to wage war; on the other hand, an armed and trained population has stronger bargaining power and is less willing to submit to the taxation demanded by the central government. This project establishes theoretical foundations for the trade-off faced by early modern states, and study its implications for the long-run state development process.

This paper studies the Malthusian constraint on local living standards in colonial South Asia, based on a novel district-level dataset of subsistence ratios.

Master’s thesis

CESifo Working Paper. EUtax Working Paper. Paper selected for the NBER SI Political Economy 2025 Paper nominated for the CESifo Award in Public Economics 2025 Abstract. We examine the political costs of taxation in early modern France.

Is a delayed fertility transition a barrier to structural change? This paper explores a mechanism based on differential demographic behavior between sectors.

Abstract

Dormant policy-related project about a smooth tax function (in French).