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

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，而是支持那些被视为犯罪的活动，如敲诈勒索、生产非法商品、走私，甚至是彻头彻尾的恐怖主义。然而，证据有力地表明，所涉及的成本是巨大的：这些国家的经济增长较低，政治冲突的可能性很高。尽管它在经济和政治上都很重要，但迄今为止，缺乏可靠的微观数据阻碍了对这一难题的系统研究。这一比较历史研究收集并分析了18世纪英国和法国私掠行为的政治经济方面独特的定量证据：国家许可的海盗袭击敌对国家的商船。该项目确定了(1)国家促进海盗犯罪活动的条件，以及(2)探索它如何影响经济和政治表现。其理论贡献在于将私掠作为一种选择性产权的案例来研究。私掠是一种保障国内商人财产权而剥夺外国商人财产权的制度安排。虽然产权是社会和经济交换的一项重要制度，但在社会学中却很少受到重视。如果他们确实关注这些问题，社会科学家通常会承认产权是一种公共利益，而不是一种选择性利益：它要么对每个人都可用，要么完全不存在。由于社会学没有选择性产权理论，本研究使用博弈论工具建立了一个选择性制度模型，该模型展示了将海盗行为合法化为私掠行为如何提供了一种政治工具，这种工具很像将精英与州政府的利益联系在一起的保护人网络。对于商人精英来说，私掠立刻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。对于国家建设的统治者来说，授权商业精英作为私掠者提供了额外的收入来源，以很少的成本补充了海军，而且，以真正的重商主义的方式，破坏了敌对国家的贸易。为了探索这些关系，该项目收集了1700年至1815年间英国和法国私人海盗航行的发生率、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有关当代国家支持的暴力形式的政策决策产生重要影响。这项研究将为发展中国家和转型国家的体制建设和国家决策提供新的和重要的见解，特别是在多大程度上选择性地执行产权阻碍了经济增长和政治稳定。

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.