Abstract
AbstractWhy can some governments credibly commit to the rule of law and protection of property rights while others cannot? A potential answer involves deep historical traditions of institutions that constrain rulers. We explore whether experiences with representative assemblies in medieval/early modern Europe have left their mark on incomes and institutions today. We employ Stasavage's (2010) data on representative assembly activity in 30 medieval/early modern European polities and the Putterman and Weil (2010) data on descendancy shares from circa 1500 populations to construct country‐level measures of historical assembly experience. We find that assembly experience is positively correlated with a measure of the rule of law and property rights and the Polity IV index that emphasizes constraint. Our estimates imply an important advantage for countries with assembly experience – an increase in experience from zero to that of an average Stasavage country would improve the country's property rights score by nearly 1.5 points.
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