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

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of London; King's College London
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050721000450
• 发表日期: 2021
• 页码: 975-1014
• 关键词: identification; PARADOX; models

摘要

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.