@unpublished{praninskas2026enfranchisement,
  author = {Praninskas, Gailius and Munroe, Ellen},
  title = {Did Enfranchisement Lead to Representation?},
  year = {2026},
  note = {Job Market Paper}
}

Did enfranchisement make Parliament more representative of the population? If so, was it because politicians from poorer backgrounds were elected and advocated different policies, or because politicians of every background responded to what the new voters wanted? We study Britain’s democratisation, from a property franchise to universal suffrage, combining biographical records of Members of Parliament (MPs) with over 17 million probate (wealth-at-death) records to place politicians, their fathers and enfranchised voters in the same wealth distribution from 1858 to 1990. In the 1860s the typical MP’s father was 3,100 times as wealthy as the typical man; by the 1980s, 10 times. In parliamentary debates, MPs from poor families advocated for policies benefiting the poor, and spoke on issues poor voters cared about. We attribute at least one third of the change in MPs’ background wealth to the franchise — among MPs who entered Parliament at the same election, those who started their political careers under a wider franchise came from poorer families. The parties that fielded poorer candidates won more seats where more of the electorate was poor, and their gains after enfranchisement were largest in the constituencies with the most new poor voters. MPs already in office did not advocate more for the poor when their electors grew poorer; the change came from newly elected MPs from poor families. The costs of standing limited the effectiveness of early enfranchisement acts. The poor entered Parliament only once the unions and the Labour party paid for their candidacies. Enfranchisement helped Britain transition from plutocracy toward a common-interest state primarily by changing who sat in Parliament.

• 2026: Linnaeus Inequality Summit; KIZ Political Economy Workshop; HYRCE Liège; 2nd Warwick–LSE Political Economy PhD Conference; LSE SPEECH
• 2025: Royal Economic Society Annual Conference; Danish Historical Political Economy Workshop; 14th Annual Lithuanian Conference on Economic Research; Warwick–LSE Political Economy PhD Conference; Oxford University Political Economy Work in Progress; LSE Political Science Political Economy Work in Progress; LSE SPEECH
• 2024: LSE Workshop on Institutions and Political Economy; LSE SPEECH

Does a political dynasty pass on inherited wealth or political capital? We separate the two for British MPs, using changes in bequest taxation and close elections among first-time candidates. Over time, the relative return to wealth has fallen, while the relative chance of fathering an MP by holding office has risen.

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