Voting up? The effects of democracy and franchise extension on human stature

Batinti, Alberto, Costa-Font, Joan ORCID: 0000-0001-7174-7919 and J. Hatton, Timothy (2022) Voting up? The effects of democracy and franchise extension on human stature. Economica, 89 (353). 161 - 190. ISSN 0013-0427

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Abstract

We study the effect of the spread of democracy on population health in 15 European countries since the middle of the 19th century, and more specifically the average height of adult males by five-year birth cohort, and we estimate the effect of transitions to democracy using within-country variation. We find that the advent of democracy increased average height by about 0.7 cm. When we also account for the extension of the franchise to women, this increases to 1 cm or about 9% of the total increase in height of birth cohorts from the 1870s to the 1970s. Intervening mechanisms include reduced inequality and increased expenditure on social and health services. Our results are robust to a wide range of econometric tests.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/14680335
Additional Information:	© 2021 The London School of Economics and Political Science
Divisions:	Health Policy
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
JEL classification:	H - Public Economics > H1 - Structure and Scope of Government > H10 - General J - Labor and Demographic Economics > J1 - Demographic Economics > J18 - Public Policy
Date Deposited:	18 Aug 2021 09:06
Last Modified:	16 Nov 2024 05:15
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/111606

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