Democratization and the Size of Government: Evidence from the Long 19th Century

Toke Aidt and Peter Jensen

No 4132, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: We study the consequences of franchise extension and ballot reform for the size of government in Western Europe between 1820 and 1913. We find that franchise extension exhibits a U-shaped association with revenue per capita and a positive association with spending per capita. Instrumental variables estimates, however, suggest that the U-shaped relationship may be non-causal and our fixed effects estimates point to substantial cross-country heterogeneity. Further, we find that the secret ballot did not matter for tax revenues per capita but might have expanded the size of government relative to GDP.

Keywords: suffrage; threat of revolution; taxation; size of government (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D70 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (45)

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Journal Article: Democratization and the size of government: evidence from the long 19th century (2013)
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