According to the prevailing view of Europe’s political history, constrained government and state capacity developed in tandem. In this study, we reevaluate this perspective by construct-ing new historical indices for executive constraints and fiscal capacity. Our findings challenge the presumed connection, illustrating that high-capacity states existed under unconstrained government, and low-capacity states existed under constrained regimes. We also identify what made England historically distinctive: its political system stood out for combining con-strained government with high fiscal capacity. This rare combination helps explain the even-tual take-off of modern economic growth in England.
Henriques et al. (Tue,) studied this question.