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The Retrenchment Hypothesis and the Extension of the Franchise in England and Wales

Toke Skovsgaard Aidt · Martin J. Daunton · Jayasri Dutta

136 citations0/0 files storedThe Economic Journal

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Local Government Finance and Decentralization Historical Economic and Social Studies Fiscal Policies and Political Economy

Abstract

Does an extension of the voting franchise always increase public spending or can it be a source of retrenchment? We study this question in the context of public spending on health‐related urban amenities in a panel of municipal boroughs from England and Wales in 1868, 1871 and 1886. We find evidence of a U‐shaped relationship between spending on urban amenities and the extension of the local voting franchise. Our model of taxpayer democracy suggests that the retrenchment effect was related to enfranchisement of the middle class through nation‐wide reforms and that these reforms might have been Pareto inferior in the average borough.

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References

2001Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data 1995What To Do (and Not to Do) with Time-Series Cross-Section Data 1981A Rational Theory of the Size of Government 2004Women as Policy Makers: Evidence from a Randomized Policy Experiment in India 2003Democracy and Redistribution 2000Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective 2002Decentralization of Governance and Development 1997An Economic Model of Representative Democracy

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