Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature

Alberto Batinti, Joan Costa-Font and Timothy Hatton

No 4, CEH Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic History, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Abstract: We study the welfare effects of the spread of democratic institutions and the extension of voting rights in 15 European countries since the middle of the nineteenth century. We exploit within-country variation in average height by birth cohort in conjunction with a new instrumental variable strategy, alongside an event study. We find robust evidence of an effect of the expansion in the quality of democracy on human stature. We estimate that the transition to democracy increased average male heights by 0.7 to 1 cm, equivalent to a one-decade average increase in stature across cohorts. Including the extension of the franchise to women, increases the effect on average stature to about 1.7 cm. The effect is driven by the influence of political participation and contestation on equality and access to health services. Our results are robust to a range of additional statistical tests.

Keywords: height; democracy; transition; voting rights expansions; franchise; inequality; political contestation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H1 J18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-pol
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https://cbe.anu.edu.au/researchpapers/CEH/WP202004.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature (2022)
Working Paper: Voting up? The effects of democracy and franchise extension on human stature (2022)
Working Paper: Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature (2019)
Working Paper: Voting Up? The Effects of Democracy and Franchise Extension on Human Stature (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:auu:hpaper:086

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