Taxes, Trade, and the Circulation of Coin: The Roman Empire, Mughal India and T'ang China Compared

Abstract

Institutions and arrangements designed to avoid the physical trans portation of money, especially tax money, had developed in several pre-industrial empires. In Tang China, government officials and pri vate merchants used 'memorial-presenting courts' to remit money from the provinces to the political centre and vice versa. The hundi system of Mughal India, a banker-operated system of bills of exchange catered to the needs of both tax-farmers and merchants. In Rome, private in dividuals and government officials tried to limit the amount of coins to be transported from one part of the empire to another. But physical transfers of cash could not be avoided altogether. This was partly be cause of the absence of a co-ordinated system comprising both private transfers of money and transmissions of provincial tax revenues to the central treasury in Rome.