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Dan Bogart | ||
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Home | Vita | Research | Teaching | Other Links | ||
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Research Interests. British and World Economic History
Government Policy Towards Infrastructure Investment
Institutions and Economic Growth
Papers Published in Refereed Journals
'Did Turnpike Trusts Increase Transportation Investment in Eighteenth-Century England?' Journal of Economic History 65 (2005): 439-468.
'Turnpike Trusts and the Transportation Revolution in 18th century England' Explorations in Economic History 42 (2005): 479-508.
‘Neighbors, Networks, and the Development of Transport Systems: Explaining the Diffusion of Turnpike Trusts in Eighteenth Century England,’ Journal of Urban Economics 61 (March 2007), 238-362.
"Turnpike Trusts and Property Income: New Evidence on the effects of Transport Improvements and Legislation in Eighteenth Century England,' The Economic History Review 62 (2009), 128-152.
Networks and Spatial Economics 9 (2009), 309-338
Nationalizations and the Development of Transport Systems: Cross-Country Evidence from Railroad Networks, 1860-1912. Journal of Economic History 69 (March 2009) 202-237.
Making Property Productive: Reorganizing Rights to Real and Equitable Estates in Britain, 1660 to 1830. (Joint with Gary Richardson) European Review of Economic History 13 (April 2009), 3-30. Estate Acts, 1600 to 1830: A New Source for British History (Joint with Gary Richardson), Forthcoming in Research in Economic History
A Global Perspective on Railway Inefficiency and the Rise of State Ownership, 1880-1912, Forthcoming in Explorations in Economic History
Papers Published in Edited Volumes
‘Turnpike Trusts,’ The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics 2nd Edition. Eds. Steven N. Durlauf and Lawrence E. Blume.,Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
‘State and Private Institutions,’ (Joint With Mauricio Drelichman, Oscar Gelderblom, and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal), Forthcoming in Unifying the European Experience: An Economic History of Modern Europe. Eds. Stephen Broadberry and Kevin O’Rourke, Cambridge University Press, 2009.
Other Publications
‘Turnpike Trusts, Infrastructure Investment, and the Road Transportation Revolution in Eighteenth-Century England’ In Summaries of Dissertations, The Journal of Economic History 65 (June 2005), 540-543.
Papers Submitted to Refereed Journals or Edited Volumes Under Review, Journal of Development Economics Abstract One theory argues that state ownership of infrastructure is greater in poor countries because the social returns from investment exceed the private returns by a wider margin. Another theory argues that state ownership is greater when legal and political institutions provide weak enforcement of private property rights or weak limits on government excess. I test these theories using cross-country data on state and private ownership of new railroad miles between 1860 and 1912. The results from a panel analysis show that private ownership of new railroad miles increased when G.D.P. per capita increased. They also show that state ownership was greater in countries with civil law legal systems compared to common law legal systems. The findings suggest that state ownership of new railroads was symptomatic of insecure property rights in some cases, but the dominant consideration was the level of income and its implications for private returns. Resubmitted, Economic History Review Abstract The Glorious Revolution has been linked with Britain’s economic development in the eighteenth century. This paper examines its impact on early transport improvements. First, it shows that several road and river undertakers in the 1600s had their rights violated because of political changes and actions taken by the Crown or Parliament. Second, it shows that the likelihood of rights violations was lower after 1689. Third, it uses structural breaks tests to demonstrate that the level of road and river investment was substantially higher after the mid-1690s. Together the evidence suggests that the institutional changes following the Glorious Revolution reduced political risk and uncertainty for infrastructure undertakers and that they responded by proposing and financing more projects. Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain. (Joint with Gary Richardson) Under Review, Journal of Law & Economics Abstract During Britain’s industrialization, Parliament operated a forum where rights to land and resources could be reorganized. This venue enabled landholders and communities to exploit economic opportunities that could not be accommodated by the inflexible rights regime inherited from the past. In this essay, historical evidence, archival data, and statistical analysis demonstrate that Parliament increased the number of acts reorganizing property rights in response to increases in the demand for such acts. Tests with placebo groups confirm the robustness of this result. This evidence indicates that Parliament responded elastically to changes in the public’s demand for reorganizing property rights. Under Review as a Chapter in Law and Economic Development: a Historical Perspective (Eds.) Debin Ma and Jan Luiten van Zanden. Abstract British institutions differed from those in Continental Europe and throughout the world in the eighteenth century, but there is disagreement about their contribution to economic development. Statutory authorities are one example of Britain’s economic institutions. Parliament granted organizations monopoly rights to levy tolls and undertake infrastructure projects. This paper examines whether two types of statutory authorities, turnpike trusts and river navigations, were second-best policies by comparing the social benefits with the social costs. It shows that the social savings from lower transport costs exceeded the social costs from monopoly, exclusion, and legal expenditures. It also argues that the alternatives to statutory authorities were generally worse because they would not have produced the same level of infrastructure investment. Under Review as a Chapter in Volume Honoring Ken Sokoloff (Eds.) Naomi Lamoreaux and Dora Costa. Abstract The U.K. and U.S. were world leaders in transport development by the mid-19th century. We compare the evolution of transportation organizations in the U.K. and the U.S. with a focus on the differences in their chartering regimes. We show that U.S. state governments incorporated far more transportation companies per person at far lower fees than did the U.K. Parliament. Our initial investigation suggests that a key difference was the greater degree of urbanization in the U.K. Greater urbanization increased profitability and enabled promoters to pay higher fees. It also contributed to greater conflicts with property owners raising the costs of obtaining charters. Another contributing factor was the competitive economic environment in which U.S. cities and localities raced to improve their transport links. The greater degree of democracy and decentralization in the U.S helped foster the competitive economic environment. Works in Progress Abstract Economic development and railroad construction were inter-connected during the period from 1870 to 1912. This paper analyzes the short-term and long-term relationship between G.D.P., private railroad construction, and state railroad construction using panel cointegration and vector error correction models. The results show that the numbers of miles constructed by private companies and states are both cointegrated with G.D.P. and G.D.P. per capita. The results also show that G.D.P. per capita had a positive short-run effect on private railroad miles, but not vice versa. By contrast state railroad miles had a positive short-run effect on G.D.P., but not vice versa. These findings suggest that state railroad construction was an engine of development while private railroad construction was more of a vehicle for profits and satisfying growing demand.
Abstract Using a new dataset on Indian railway companies, we study the effects of ownership structure on performance between 1882 and 1912. Over this period, new public-private partnerships came to dominate the scene as former private companies were bought out by the Government of India, but were allowed to retain operations in most cases. Moreover, some state-owned lines switched from Government to company operation. By exploiting switches in ownership and operation within the same railway system, we find that the move to state ownership led to significantly lower operating costs, but there were minimal effects from the move to private operation. The findings have implications for the broader debate about the divide between public and private authority. Accessible Democracy, Adaptable Rights, and London’s Expansion during the Industrial Revolution (Joint With Gary Richardson). Abstract London‘s eighteenth-century expansion required the reorganization of rights for large tracts of land. This property previously lay within equitable estates and agricultural villages. Removing property from these restrictive property-rights regimes proved problematic. Parliament catalyzed the process by passing acts reorganizing rights to land and resources. Two theories characterize Parliament‘s behavior during this period. The first views Parliament as an organization that limited access to acts in order to earn rents for legislators or to advance the interests of aristocrats. The second views Parliament as an accessible institution that addressed issues brought before it by broad segments of society. We test these theories using time-series statistical methods and annual data on the number of acts passed by Parliament and the property market in Middlesex, the county surrounding London. The results are consistent with the conjecture of an accessible legislature. Infrastructure Finance and the London Capital Market: New evidence on the integration of British Domestic Capital Markets, 1700-1840 (Joint with Gary Richardson) Abstract When did the London capital market become integrated with the financing of transport improvements in Britain? This paper uses unknown structural break tests to analyze the stability of the relationship between transportation improvement acts and real yields on long-term government debt traded in London between 1701 and 1840. The results reveal that integration differed across transport modes. Road financing appears to have been integrated with the London capital market from the early 1700s, whereas the financing of inland waterways became integrated with the London capital market after the 1790s and harbors after the early 1800s. Bridge financing was never integrated with the London market before 1840. The results have implications for the apparently weak link between finance and the real economy during the early stages of the Industrial Revolution.
Parliament and Property Rights: A Database. (Joint With Gary Richardson). Abstract After 1689 Parliament passed increasing numbers of acts altering property rights. The acts enabled individuals to sell, mortgage, lease, and improve land previously bound by legal legacies; granted rights to organizations, such as turnpikes and canal companies, which supplied infrastructure and public services; and replaced traditional agricultural rights with enclosed fields and individual property. This note describes a database of estate, statutory authority, and enclosure acts. The depth and detail of the database enables us to document these trends and discuss their effects on English economic development and the Industrial Revolution.
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