[Sammelrezension zu Luigi Einaudi und Giuseppe Prato über die Finanzen des Staates Sabaudien während des Spanischen Erbfolgekriegs]

Hermann von Schullern zu Schrattenhofen: Review of Einaudi and Prato on Savoyard War Finance (1909)

Schullern’s joint review assesses three complementary studies of the finances of the Savoyard state during the War of the Spanish Succession: Luigi Einaudi’s documentary and historical treatment of public finance, his analysis of revenues in treasury accounts, and Giuseppe Prato’s study of war costs and public expenditure. Its central judgment links exemplary historical research to the needs of contemporary economic policy.

The review begins with the institutional setting. Prompted by Luigi Luzzatti, a commission undertook to publish the financial documents of the states of the Piedmontese monarchy, with the work carried out by the University of Turin’s political-economy “Laboratorium.” Einaudi’s historical volume inaugurates the planned series; the other two books serve as preparatory studies. Schullern stresses the scale and care of their common evidentiary foundation:

In den drei Bänden bietet sich dem Leser ein ungeheures Material dar, das sichtlich mit größter Sorgfalt und Gewissenhaftigkeit gesammelt und verarbeitet worden ist.

English translation: In the three volumes there is offered to the reader an enormous body of material, which has evidently been collected and worked up with the greatest care and conscientiousness.

His account then concentrates on Einaudi’s historical volume. He singles out the early eighteenth-century Savoyard tax system, especially tobacco and spirits taxation, as particularly valuable for specialists. Regional fiscal arrangements lead into chapters on wartime taxes and borrowing, revenues obtained through war—including subsidies and confiscations—and the war’s economic and financial balance. The last topic includes an examination of how war costs should be calculated, using the Franco-Prussian War as a comparative example. The emphasis thus moves from fiscal institutions and revenue sources to the methodological problem of determining the cost of conflict.

Schullern distinguishes this historical and public-finance approach from the more technical accounting orientation of the other books. Prato follows the transformation of money laboriously raised by the state into actual means of defence; Einaudi reconstructs state revenues through the accounts. Their complementarity makes the three volumes a connected inquiry into fiscal policy, recorded receipts, and military expenditure, rather than simply parallel accumulations of documents.

The concluding appraisal supplies the review’s strongest conceptual claim:

Alle drei Werke können als vorbildlich für derartige Studien bezeichnet werden, sowohl in betreff der eingehaltenen Forschungsmethode, als auch in bezug auf die Darstellungsweise; auch zeigen sie so recht deutlich, wie unrecht diejenigen haben, welche historische Einzelstudien in ihrer Bedeutung für die Wirtschaftspolitik der Gegenwart unterschätzen.

English translation: All three works may be designated as exemplary for studies of this kind, both with respect to the research method adhered to and with respect to the manner of presentation; they also show quite clearly how wrong those are who underestimate the significance of individual historical studies for the economic policy of the present.

For Schullern, research method and presentation justify the books’ exemplary status, while their detailed historical focus establishes their wider relevance. He does not derive specific policy recommendations or test individual findings in this brief review. His intervention is instead a concise defence of fiscal case studies as resources for contemporary economic understanding.