[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehs/wpaper/14024.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Governance after the Glorious Revolution: evidence on the enforcement of property rights in Britain’s transport sector, 1690-1750

Author

Listed:
  • Dan Bogart

    (UC Irvine)

Abstract
"Britain’s economic rise in the eighteenth century is often linked with the strong protection of property rights by Parliament. This view remains controversial because there have been few studies directly examining Parliament’s role in the enforcement of property rights and the political economy forces are not well understood. This paper provides micro-evidence in the context of Britain’s transport sector, where turnpike trusts were given rights to levy tolls subject to a cap. The toll caps were renegotiated in Parliament creating the potential for interest groups to lobby for lower tolls. Using novel data spanning from 1690 to 1750, I show that more than 83% of renegotiations either maintained or expanded toll caps, indicating that property rights designed by parliament were mostly secure. An econometric analysis also reveals under which conditions property rights in tolls were weakened in renegotiations. The odds were greater when local connections to the majority party and political competition were weaker. The odds of lower tolls were greater following elections, foreign wars, and bad harvests. The results enrich our understanding of governance after the Glorious Revolution and serve as a reminder that the enforcement of property rights is a politic-economic equilibrium."

Suggested Citation

  • Dan Bogart, 2014. "Governance after the Glorious Revolution: evidence on the enforcement of property rights in Britain’s transport sector, 1690-1750," Working Papers 14024, Economic History Society.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehs:wpaper:14024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.ehs.org.uk/dotAsset/43a7dcf7-28a4-4672-b295-7a239f86f84d.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Konrad, Kai A., 2009. "Strategy and Dynamics in Contests," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199549603.
    2. Stasavage,David, 2003. "Public Debt and the Birth of the Democratic State," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521809672, September.
    3. Stergios Skaperdas & Samarth Vaidya, 2012. "Persuasion as a contest," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 51(2), pages 465-486, October.
    4. Dan Bogart, 2011. "Did the Glorious Revolution contribute to the transport revolution? Evidence from investment in roads and rivers," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 64(4), pages 1073-1112, November.
    5. Dan Bogart & Gary Richardson, 2011. "Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(2), pages 241-274.
    6. Appelbaum, Elie & Katz, Eliakim, 1986. "Rent seeking and entry," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 207-212.
    7. Curto-Grau, Marta & Herranz-Loncán, Alfonso & Solé-Ollé, Albert, 2012. "Pork-Barrel Politics in Semi-Democracies: The Spanish “Parliamentary Roads,” 1880–1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 771-796, August.
    8. Gary W. Cox, 2008. "Electoral Institutions and Political Competition: Coordination, Persuasion and Mobilization," Springer Books, in: Claude Ménard & Mary M. Shirley (ed.), Handbook of New Institutional Economics, chapter 4, pages 69-89, Springer.
    9. North, Douglass C. & Weingast, Barry R., 1989. "Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(4), pages 803-832, December.
    10. Unknown, 1986. "Letters," Choices: The Magazine of Food, Farm, and Resource Issues, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 1(4), pages 1-9.
    11. Dan Bogart & Robert Oandasan, 2013. "Party Representation in English and Welsh Constituencies, 1690-1740," Working Papers 121310, University of California-Irvine, Department of Economics.
    12. Nuala Zahedieh, 2010. "Regulation, rent‐seeking, and the Glorious Revolution in the English Atlantic economy," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 63(4), pages 865-890, November.
    13. Stein, William E, 2002. "Asymmetric Rent-Seeking with More Than Two Contestants," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 113(3-4), pages 325-336, December.
    14. North,Douglass C. & Wallis,John Joseph & Weingast,Barry R., 2013. "Violence and Social Orders," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107646995.
    15. Christopher Dudley, 2013. "Party politics, political economy, and economic development in early eighteenth-century Britain," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(4), pages 1084-1100, November.
    16. Patrick O'Brien & Trevor Griffiths & Philip Hunt, 1991. "Political components of the industrial revolution: Parliament and the English cotton textile industry, 1660-1774," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 44(3), pages 395-423, August.
    17. Nitzan, Shmuel, 1994. "Modelling rent-seeking contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 41-60, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Dan Bogart, 2016. "The East Indian Monopoly and the Transition from Limited Access in England, 1600–1813," NBER Chapters, in: Organizations, Civil Society, and the Roots of Development, pages 23-49, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Konrad, Kai A., 2007. "Strategy in contests: an introduction [Strategie in Turnieren – eine Einführung]," Discussion Papers, Research Unit: Market Processes and Governance SP II 2007-01, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Cox, Gary W., 2012. "Was the Glorious Revolution a Constitutional Watershed?," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 567-600, August.
    5. Jia, Hao & Skaperdas, Stergios & Vaidya, Samarth, 2013. "Contest functions: Theoretical foundations and issues in estimation," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 211-222.
    6. Malinowski, Mikołaj, 2019. "Economic Consequences of State Failure—Legal Capacity, Regulatory Activity, and Market Integration in Poland, 1505–1772," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 862-896, September.
    7. Subhasish M. Chowdhury & Patricia Esteve‐González & Anwesha Mukherjee, 2023. "Heterogeneity, leveling the playing field, and affirmative action in contests," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(3), pages 924-974, January.
    8. Cugno, Franco & Ferrero, Mario, 2004. "Competition among volunteers," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 637-654, September.
    9. Harris,Colin & Cai,Meina & Murtazashvili,Ilia & Murtazashvili,Jennifer Brick, 2020. "The Origins and Consequences of Property Rights," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781108969055, September.
    10. Ratul Lahkar & Rezina Sultana, 2020. "Affirmative Action in Large Population Contests," Working Papers 40, Ashoka University, Department of Economics.
    11. Jennifer Brown, 2011. "Quitters Never Win: The (Adverse) Incentive Effects of Competing with Superstars," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 119(5), pages 982-1013.
    12. Sumner La Croix, 2014. "Land Confiscations and land reform in Natural-Order States," Working Papers 201406, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    13. Chilosi, David, 2014. "Risky Institutions: Political Regimes and the Cost of Public Borrowing in Early Modern Italy," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 74(3), pages 887-915, September.
    14. Osório, António (António Miguel), 2018. "Conflict and Competition over Multi-Issues," Working Papers 2072/306550, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    15. De Magalhaes, Leandro & Giovannoni, Francesco, 2022. "War and the rise of parliaments," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    16. Grossmann, Martin & Dietl, Helmut, 2015. "Heterogeneous outside options in contests," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 280-287.
    17. van Besouw, Bram & Ansink, Erik & van Bavel, Bas, 2016. "The economics of violence in natural states," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 132(PA), pages 139-156.
    18. Haggard, Stephan & Tiede, Lydia, 2011. "The Rule of Law and Economic Growth: Where are We?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 673-685, May.
    19. Sussman, Nathan, 2019. "The Financial Development of London in the 17th Century Revisited: A View from the Accounts of the Corporation of London," CEPR Discussion Papers 13920, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Dongryul Lee & Pilwon Kim, 2022. "Group formation in a dominance-seeking contest," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 58(1), pages 39-68, January.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Contests; Rent-Seeking; Lobbying; Transport; Political Parties; Glorious Revolution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • P16 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Capitalist Economies - - - Capitalist Institutions; Welfare State
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehs:wpaper:14024. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chair Public Engagement Committe (currently David Higgins - Newcastle) (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.