In general, the information we have about the economic basis of tyranny is few. Thucydides refers to tyrants as being responsible for the imposition of a direct tax on production yielded by land cultivation. In general, it is said that they claimed from 1/12 to 1/20 of the product (Thucydides, Histories 1.17 & 18).
In Athens, in order for the Pisistratids to gather as many powers as possible, they supported the citizens' community more substantially than Solon did in earlier times with his reforms. They applied various measures in order to unify the state, they created a kind of public treasury, they legislated state cults and public ceremonies.

Pisistratus' general notion of governing a city focused mainly on reducing the power of local aristocracy and concentrating the state's power on one person, the tyrant. This notion was revealed by the measures that were instituted aiming to reinforce the state's centralization and encourage individuals to identify with the state through their capacity as citizens. Some of these measures were the construction of public buildings and the establishment of the Panathenaea, which constituted a widely accepted and prestigious institution yielding big profits. Furthermore, it was an important step towards the creation of common consciousness. Pisistratus organized the agora, constructed the first porous-stone aqueduct in Athens which supplied with water the Enneakrounos fountain-house (Thucydides, Histories 2.15.3-5, Pausanias, Attica 14.1), expanded the Eleusinian Telesterion, reconstructed the temple of Pallas Athena and began the works of the Olympieum. His son, Hipparchus, undertook the construction of the Academy's surrounding wall (Herodotus, Historia 1.59-64). His external policy has been interpreted as a sign of his conscious effort to give an impulse to his city's trade. He reoccupied Sigeum on the coast of Asia Minor -opposite Lemnos- and sent colonists to Chersonesus, opposite Imbros, probably in order to control the entrance to the Black Sea.

Other famous tyrants of that time followed a similar policy. The famous diolkos of Corinth was constructed in the time of Periander, by the family of the Cypselids. In Samos, the famous Tunnel by Eupalinus was completed, when tyrant Polycrates had the power. The aqueduct in Megara, also a work by Eupalinus, belongs to the time of Theagenes.

In general, tyranny contributed to the development of a state consciousness through the construction of temples and public buildings, the promotion of religious festivals and popular cults (e.g. in honour of Dionysus), as well as through the creation of coinage. The exportation of ceramics increased in the time of tyranny. This could imply a more general increase of other products' transactions (Aristotle, Politics 1313b18-1313b32).