Governance after the Glorious Revolution: evidence on the enforcement of property rights in Britain’s transport sector, 1690-1750

"Britain’s economic rise in the eighteenth century is often linked with the strong protection of property rights by Parliament. This view remains controversial because there have been few studies directly examining Parliament’s role in the enforcement of property rights and the political economy forces are not well understood. This paper provides micro-evidence in the context of Britain’s transport sector, where turnpike trusts were given rights to levy tolls subject to a cap. The toll caps were renegotiated in Parliament creating the potential for interest groups to lobby for lower tolls. Using novel data spanning from 1690 to 1750, I show that more than 83% of renegotiations either maintained or expanded toll caps, indicating that property rights designed by parliament were mostly secure. An econometric analysis also reveals under which conditions property rights in tolls were weakened in renegotiations. The odds were greater when local connections to the majority party and political competition were weaker. The odds of lower tolls were greater following elections, foreign wars, and bad harvests. The results enrich our understanding of governance after the Glorious Revolution and serve as a reminder that the enforcement of property rights is a politic-economic equilibrium."