Browse IFS
Publication types
IFS Working Papers
May 2010 W10/08
Article
Did the extension of the franchise increase the Liberal vote in Victorian Britain? Evidence from the Second Reform Act
Type: IFS Working Papers
Authors: Samuel Berlinski and Torun Dewan
ISSN: 1742-0415

Download BibTex file | 

We use evidence from the Second Reform Act, introduced in the United Kingdom in 1867, to analyze the impact on electoral outcomes of extending the vote to the unskilled urban population. By exploiting the sharp change in the electorate caused by franchise extension, we separate the effect of reform from that of underlying constituency level traits correlated with the voting population. Although we find that the franchise affected electoral competition and candidate selection, there is no evidence that relates Liberal electoral support to changes in the franchise rules. Our results are robust to various sources of endogeneity.

Download full version (PDF 352 KB)

Search

Title (or part of title)
Author surname (or part of surname)

Recent publications
View all IFS Working Papers in the series

Recent IFS Working Papers

Subscribe via one of these feeds for IFS Working Papers:
RSS feed
Atom feed