TY  - JOUR
AU  - Bogart,Daniel
AU  - Richardson,Gary
TI  - Property Rights and Parliament in Industrializing Britain
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 15697
PY  - 2010
Y2  - January 2010
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15697
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w15697.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Daniel Bogart
Department of Economics
3151 Social Science Plaza
University of Irvine
Irvine, CA 92697-5100
Tel: 949-824-3191
E-Mail: dbogart@uci.edu

Gary Richardson
Department of Economics
University of California, Irvine
3155 Social Sciences Plaza
Irvine, CA 92697-5100
Tel: 949/824-3189
Fax: 949/824-2182
E-Mail: garyr@uci.edu
AB  - 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. Parliament’s efforts to adapt property rights to modern economic conditions may have accelerated Britain’s economic ascent
ER  -