Private Benefits, Public Vices: Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament

Rui Esteves; Gabriel Geisler Mesevage

doi:10.1017/S0022050721000450

Private Benefits, Public Vices: Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament

Rui Esteves, Gabriel Geisler Mesevage^*

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

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.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	975-1014
Number of pages	40
Journal	JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
Volume	81
Issue number	4
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022050721000450
Publication status	Published - 11 Dec 2021

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title = "Private Benefits, Public Vices: Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament",

abstract = "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. ",

author = "Rui Esteves and {Geisler Mesevage}, Gabriel",

note = "Funding Information: The authors thank Dan Bogart, Marc Flandreau, Philip Hoffman, Andrew Odlyzko, Kim Oosterlinck, Albrecht Ritschl, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and two anonymous referees for very useful comments. The paper has also benefited from discussions with the participants in the annual conference of the Economic History Society in Royal Holloway, the Fifth CEPR Economic History Symposium, the conference of the European Historical Economics Society in T{\"u}bingen, and the annual meetings of the Allied Social Sciences Association in Philadelphia, the members of the MacroHist ITN, and with audiences in seminars at Caltech, Queen{\textquoteright}s University Belfast, Oxford, the University of Leipzig, the Bank of France, and the University of Pennsylvania. The usual disclaimer applies. The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union{\textquoteright}s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement n° 608129. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright}",

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doi = "10.1017/S0022050721000450",

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N1 - Funding Information: The authors thank Dan Bogart, Marc Flandreau, Philip Hoffman, Andrew Odlyzko, Kim Oosterlinck, Albrecht Ritschl, Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, and two anonymous referees for very useful comments. The paper has also benefited from discussions with the participants in the annual conference of the Economic History Society in Royal Holloway, the Fifth CEPR Economic History Symposium, the conference of the European Historical Economics Society in Tübingen, and the annual meetings of the Allied Social Sciences Association in Philadelphia, the members of the MacroHist ITN, and with audiences in seminars at Caltech, Queen’s University Belfast, Oxford, the University of Leipzig, the Bank of France, and the University of Pennsylvania. The usual disclaimer applies. The research leading to these results has received funding from the People Programme (Marie Curie Actions) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/2007-2013/ under REA grant agreement n° 608129. Publisher Copyright: ©

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N2 - 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.

AB - 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.

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Private Benefits, Public Vices: Railways and Logrolling in the Nineteenth-Century British Parliament

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