Births, Deaths, and Taxes: The Demographic and Political Transitions

It has long been suspected that birth rates and death rates are tied in some way to political change, but until now reliable evidence of such a relationship has eluded researchers. After their own extensive research, the authors of Births, Deaths, and Taxes present the first empirical evidence indicating that state growth and the centralization of political power have a direct effect on a country's mortality and fertility rates: as the capacity of government grows, a nation's vital rates will decline. Because mortality rates decline first, state growth in recent decades precipitated a population explosion. Continued state growth, along with social and economic development, is now causing a drop in fertility as well. To establish this relationship between political development and vital rates, the authors constructed an innovative index to measure political development and capacity. They argue that the growth of government power can be reasonably and accurately gauged by measuring increases in taxation.