IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/8512.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World

Author

Listed:
  • Stanley L. Engerman
  • Kenneth L. Sokoloff

Abstract

Most analysis of how the distribution of political power affects the patterns of growth has been confined to the late-twentieth century. One problem associated with a focus on the modern record is that processes that take place over the long run are not examined. We may all agree that institutions concerned with the distribution of political power have an impact on growth, but our interpretation of the relationship will vary with our understanding of where institutions come from: to what degree are institutions exogenous, and to what degree are they endogenous. This paper contributes to our knowledge of where institutions have come from by examining how the rules governing the extension of suffrage, a key measure of the distribution of political influence, evolved over time within the United States and across the societies of the Americas. We have previously argued that there was enormous variation in the initial extent of inequality across the New World colonial societies established by the Europeans because of differences in their factor endowments present early in their histories. Moreover, these initial differences in inequality may have persisted over time if they affected the ability of elites to obtain disproportionate political leverage, and to shape legal frameworks and state policies to advantage themselves relative to others in terms of access to economic and other opportunities. In this paper, we show that the early patterns of the extension of the franchise, the proportions of the respective populations voting, and other aspects of the conduct of elections are indeed generally consistent with the notion that the extent of initial inequality and population heterogeneity was associated across societies -- even within the United States -- with the nature of the political institutions that evolved. Specifically, where there was greater inequality, the proportion of the population that had the right to vote was generally lower, and the timing of the extensions of this right from elite groups to a broad population generally later, than in areas where there was relative homogeneity in the population.

Suggested Citation

  • Stanley L. Engerman & Kenneth L. Sokoloff, 2001. "The Evolution of Suffrage Institutions in the New World," NBER Working Papers 8512, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8512
    Note: DAE EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nber.org/papers/w8512.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Saint-Paul, Gilles & Verdier, Thierry, 1993. "Education, democracy and growth," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 399-407, December.
    2. Alberto Alesina & Dani Rodrik, 1994. "Distributive Politics and Economic Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(2), pages 465-490.
    3. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2000. "Why Did the West Extend the Franchise? Democracy, Inequality, and Growth in Historical Perspective," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(4), pages 1167-1199.
    4. Roland Benabou, 2000. "Unequal Societies: Income Distribution and the Social Contract," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(1), pages 96-129, March.
    5. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    6. Galenson, David W. & Pope, Clayne L., 1989. "Economic and Geographic Mobility on the Farming Frontier: Evidence from Appanoose County, Iowa, 1850–1870," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 49(3), pages 635-655, September.
    7. William Newell, 1986. "Inheritance on the Maturing Frontier: Butler County, Ohio, 1803-1865," NBER Chapters, in: Long-Term Factors in American Economic Growth, pages 261-304, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Deininger, Klaus & Squire, Lyn, 1996. "A New Data Set Measuring Income Inequality," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 10(3), pages 565-591, September.
    9. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1994. "Is Inequality Harmful for Growth?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 600-621, June.
    10. Jeremy Greenwood, 1999. "The Third Industrial Revolution," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, issue Q II, pages 2-12.
    11. John R. Lott & Jr. & Lawrence W. Kenny, 1999. "Did Women's Suffrage Change the Size and Scope of Government?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 107(6), pages 1163-1198, December.
    12. Justman, Moshe & Gradstein, Mark, 1999. "The Industrial Revolution, Political Transition, and the Subsequent Decline in Inequality in 19th-Century Britain," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 109-127, April.
    13. Rockoff, Hugh, 1974. "The Free Banking Era: A Reexamination," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 6(2), pages 141-167, 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. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2004. "Does Libertè = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Links between Democracy and Inequality with Some Evidence on the Transition Economies," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 515-537, September.
    2. Mark Gradstein & Branko Milanovic, 2000. "Does Liberté = Egalité? A Survey of the Empirical Evidence on the Links between Political Democracy and Income Inequality," CESifo Working Paper Series 261, CESifo.
    3. Boschini, Anne, 2003. "Skills, Franchise and Industrialization," Research Papers in Economics 1999:10, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    4. Martin Baur, 2010. "Politics and Income Distribution," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Institutional and Social Dynamics of Growth and Distribution, chapter 3, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Humberto Llavador & Robert J. Oxoby, 2005. "Partisan Competition, Growth, and the Franchise," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(3), pages 1155-1189.
    6. Arsham Reisinezhad, 2018. "Economic Growth and Income Inequality in Resource Countries: Theory and Evidence," PSE Working Papers halshs-01707976, HAL.
    7. Graziella Bertocchi, 2011. "The Vanishing Bequest Tax: The Comparative Evolution Of Bequest Taxation In Historical Perspective," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 107-131, March.
    8. Enea Baselgia & Reto Foellmi, 2022. "Inequality and growth: a review on a great open debate in economics," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2022-5, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    9. Drosdowski, Thomas, 2005. "Democracy Deficits, Inequality and Pollution. A Politico-Economic Analysis," Hannover Economic Papers (HEP) dp-323, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Wirtschaftswissenschaftliche Fakultät.
    10. Zhang, Lei, 2008. "Political economy of income distribution dynamics," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 119-139, August.
    11. Ricardo Arguello, 2004. "Revisiting the Relationship between Income Distribution and Economic Growth," Borradores de Investigación 4336, Universidad del Rosario.
    12. Shinhye Chang & Rangan Gupta & Stephen M. Miller, 2018. "Causality Between Per Capita Real GDP and Income Inequality in the U.S.: Evidence from a Wavelet Analysis," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 135(1), pages 269-289, January.
    13. Cristiano Perugini & Gaetano Martino, 2008. "Income Inequality Within European Regions: Determinants And Effects On Growth," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 54(3), pages 373-406, September.
    14. Atolia, Manoj & Chatterjee, Santanu & Turnovsky, Stephen J., 2012. "Growth and inequality: Dependence on the time path of productivity increases (and other structural changes)," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 331-348.
    15. Weinhold, Diana & Nair-Reichert, Usha, 2009. "Innovation, Inequality and Intellectual Property Rights," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(5), pages 889-901, May.
    16. Jo Thori Lind, 2005. "Why is there so little redistribution?," Nordic Journal of Political Economy, Nordic Journal of Political Economy, vol. 31, pages 111-125.
    17. Grosfeld, Irena & Senik, Claudia, 2008. "The Emerging Aversion to Inequality. Evidence from Poland 1992-2005," CEPREMAP Working Papers (Docweb) 0805, CEPREMAP.
    18. Nobuhiro Mizuno & Katsuyuki Naito & Ryosuke Okazawa, 2017. "Inequality, extractive institutions, and growth in nondemocratic regimes," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(1), pages 115-142, January.
    19. Richard Bluhm & Adam Szirmai, 2011. "Institutions, Inequality and Growth: A review of theory and evidence on the institutional determinants of growth and inequality," Papers inwopa634, Innocenti Working Papers.
    20. Irena Grosfeld & Claudia Senik, 2010. "The emerging aversion to inequality," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 18(1), pages 1-26, January.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N20 - Economic History - - Financial Markets and Institutions - - - General, International, or Comparative

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:nbr:nberwo:8512. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.