Institutional Change and Representative Government: England, 1660-1832

Abstract: Institutional change is an important driver of long-run development. Broader representation in government is widely believed to be the central mechanism for this relationship. Using data on two centuries of political representation in England, we ask whether institutional change leads to more representative government over the long-run. We link individual-level data on all English Members of Parliament (MPs) and senior-level bureaucrats with genealogical datasets to document how changes in executive constraints and franchise extensions affected the inclusiveness of the state through selection into office. Despite enormous institutional change in the course of the Glorious Revolution and the Great Reform Acts, aristocrats and elite members of society saw stable representation in parliament and government throughout the period. While the selection effects are muted, there is suggestive evidence for a change in their incentives. These findings point towards state capacity as a main mechanism mediating the effect of institutional change on growth.