Urban fiscal systems all over Europe shared many similarities during the Early Modern Period. Apart from those taxes collected to meet their own needs, cities were important suppliers of fiscal incomes for the central governments, although the differences between local and state taxes were frequently blurred. The taxes collected were mostly indirect, levying the consumption of a broad range of products. This tended to raise urban price and wages levels, affecting the living standards of urban populations.
Fiscal policies were prominent in the agenda of the town-councils. While some cities were focused on the servicing of municipal debt, hampering their economic growth, in others the debate on fiscal policy helped to develop a set of institutions which promoted it.
The aim of research is to analyze the influences of urban fiscal systems on local and regional European economies in the Early Modern Period, analyzing general patterns and studying how fiscal systems evolved in the different european urban regions.
Urban fiscal systems could be considered as the result of the interplay of social factors. Particularly interesting among them is the fact that such systems mirrored the power relationships prevailing in every city of the time, so I would like to emphasize how such relationships shaped the specific forms adopted by urban fiscal systems in every case.
Urban taxation was also heavily influenced by political factors. While some cities were the proud capitals of small and rich republics and enjoyed a complete autonomy in the fiscal field (Venice), others were subordinated to powerful monarchies which tended to monitor their fiscal and financial systems closely (Madrid). This raises the question of studying how the presence or lack of fiscal autonomy affected the fiscal policies followed by the European cities.
In many cases European cities exerted a substantial control over their surrounding countryside, so it would be important to verify whether the European cities used such power to shift, completely or partially, the fiscal burden to their rural surroundings, together with the differences between the methods implemented by the cities to collect their taxes in their urban core and their rural hinterlands.
Finally, a database will be realised to compare many quantitative data as possible on aspects such as, by example, the amount of the tax collections of the different taxes; the value of the fiscal burden in ¿per capita¿ terms or the influence of taxes on wages and prices levels and on living standards.