Commerce and Crime: States, Property Rights, and the War on Trade, 1700-1815

商业与犯罪：国家、财产权和贸易战争，1700-1815 年

• 批准号: 0550848
• 负责人: Henning Hillmann
• 金额: $ 11.82万
• 依托单位: Stanford University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2006
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2006-04-01 至 2009-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0550848&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Commerce; Crime; States; Property; Rights

SES-0550848Henning HillmanStanford University When do state governments sponsor criminal behavior? History provides many examples where states have not suppressed but supported activities that are otherwise considered criminal such as extortion, production of illegal commodities, smuggling or even outright terrorism. Yet evidence strongly suggests that the costs involved are dramatic: countries have lower economic growth and a high potential for political conflict. Despite its economic and political importance, the lack of reliable microdata has so far inhibited systematic research on this puzzle. This comparative-historical study collects and analyzes unique quantitative evidence on the political economy of eighteenth-century British and French privateering: state-licensed sea piracy to raid commerce ships belonging to rival countries. The project identifies (1) the conditions under which states promote the otherwise criminal activity of sea piracy, and (2) explores how it shaped economic and political performance. The theoretical contribution is that privateering will be studied as a case of selective property rights. Privateering is an institutional arrangement that enforces property rights of domestic merchants but denies foreign merchants the same rights. Although property rights are a key institution for social and economic exchange, they have received scant attention in sociology. If they do attend to them, social scientists typically recognize property rights as a public, not a selective good: it is either available to everyone or completely absent. Since Sociology does not have a theory of selective property rights this research uses game-theoretic tools to develop a model of selective institutions that demonstrates how legalizing sea piracy as privateering provided a political instrument that worked much like patron-client networks in binding elites to the interests of state governments. For merchant elites, privateering offered at once lucrative business opportunities, chances for achieving influential political careers, and compensation for trade losses during war. For state-building rulers, authorizing merchant elites as privateers provided additional sources of revenue, a supplement to the navy at little cost, and, in true mercantilist fashion, undermined the trade of rival states. To explore these relationships, the project collects new data on the incidence, organization and profitability of privateering voyages in Britain and France between 1700 and 1815. BROADER IMPACT: Empirical results from this research will have important implications for policy decisions concerning contemporary forms of state-sponsored violence. The study will offer new and consequential insights for institution-building and state-making in developing and transition countries, especially to what extent the selective enforcement of property rights thwarts economic growth and political stability.

SES-0550848亨宁希尔曼斯坦福大学州政府什么时候赞助犯罪行为？历史上有许多例子表明，国家没有镇压而是支持被视为犯罪的活动，如勒索、生产非法商品、走私甚至是彻头彻尾的恐怖主义。然而，有证据有力地表明，所涉及的代价是巨大的：这些国家的经济增长率较低，政治冲突的可能性很高。尽管它在经济和政治上都很重要，但由于缺乏可靠的微观数据，迄今为止一直阻碍着对这一难题的系统研究。这项比较历史研究收集和分析了18世纪英国和法国私掠的政治经济学的独特定量证据：国家许可的海盗袭击属于竞争对手国家的商船。该项目确定了（1）国家促进海盗犯罪活动的条件，以及（2）探索它如何塑造经济和政治表现。理论上的贡献是，私掠将作为选择性产权的情况下进行研究。私掠是一种制度安排，它强化了国内商人的财产权，但剥夺了外国商人的同样权利。虽然产权是社会和经济交换的关键制度，但它们在社会学中很少受到关注。如果社会科学家们真的关注这些问题，他们通常会把财产权视为一种公共物品，而不是一种选择性物品：它要么对每个人都有效，要么完全不存在。由于社会学没有选择性产权的理论，本研究使用博弈论工具来开发一个选择性机构的模型，该模型展示了将海盗行为合法化作为私掠行为提供了一种政治工具，其工作方式与将精英与州政府利益联系起来的赞助人-客户网络非常相似。对于商业精英来说，私掠活动同时提供了有利可图的商业机会，实现有影响力的政治生涯的机会，以及对战争期间贸易损失的补偿。对于建国统治者来说，授权商人精英担任私掠船提供了额外的收入来源，以很少的成本补充了海军，并且以真正的重商主义方式破坏了竞争对手的贸易。为了探索这些关系，该项目收集了1700年至1815年间英国和法国私掠航行的发生率，组织和盈利能力的新数据。更广泛的影响：本研究的实证结果将对当代形式的国家支持的暴力的政策决策具有重要意义。这项研究将为发展中国家和转型期国家的机构建设和国家决策提供新的和重要的见解，特别是在何种程度上有选择地执行产权阻碍经济增长和政治稳定。