Explorations in Historical Political Economy

Abstract

Recent breakthroughs in computational techniques and digitization of large amounts of historical data have made the quantitative analysis of historical political developments possible. This has allowed researchers to exploit historical events for causal identification and assess theories about political processes against historical as well as contemporary evidence. This panel brings together a series of papers that quantitatively analyze original historical data from 17th and 19th century Britain, 19th century Denmark, and 19th - 20th century Switzerland to address important questions regarding political institutions, political behavior, and democratic development. How do uncertainty and competition affect the use of violence during election campaigns? How do coalition size and direct democratic institutions affect public spending? How does the selection of framers by lottery affect a country's constitution? How did parliamentary actors establish legislative power under autocratic rule?

Title	Details
Parliament in Crisis: Power of Representative Assemblies in XVII Century	View Paper Details
Choosing the Framers: Lottery-Based Procedures in Constituent Assemblies	View Paper Details
Coalition Size, Direct Democracy, and Public Spending	View Paper Details
Does Competition Trigger Electoral Violence? Evidence from the Second Reform Act	View Paper Details