Private Benefits, Public Vices

Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament

Datos Bibliográficos

ID5752891
AutoresRui Esteves (0000-0002-1966-7214, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies), Gabriel Geisler Mesevage (King's College London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2021
Volumen81
Número4
Páginas975-1014
Fecha de publicación2021-12-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Journal of Economic History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0022-0507 • E-ISSN: 1471-6372
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0022050721000450
OpenAlexW3205729170
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas53

Vote trading among lawmakers (logrolling) can enable political rent-seeking but is difficult to identify. To achieve identification, we explore the rules governing voting for railway projects in the U.K. Parliament during the Railway Mania of the 1840s. Parliamentary rules barred MPs from voting directly for their interests. Even so, they could trade votes to ensure their interests prevailed. We find that logrolling was significant, accounting for nearly one-quarter of the railway bills approved. We also quantify a negative externality to society from logrolling ranging from 1/3 to 1 percent of contemporary GDP

Business · Economics · Externality · Geography · Identification (biology) · Microeconomics · Parliament · Political science · Politics · Public economics · Quarter (Canadian coin) · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Fiscal Policy and Economic Growth · Law · Politics, Economics, and Education Policy