This dataset supports a study on the effects of lottery-based election systems in Swiss city-states from 1666 to 1794. It is used to analyze impacts on political seat distribution, trade tax revenues, trade volumes, and infrastructure expenditures. The author, Jonas M. Geweke, uses a difference-in-differences design to assess these outcomes.
Use Cases
- Analyze the equality of distribution of political seats within parliaments before and after election reforms.
- Model the relationship between lottery-based election systems and changes in trade tax revenues.
- Investigate the effect of election systems on infrastructure expenditures in early modern Swiss city-states.
- Examine the correlation between election reforms and the election of merchants to top political positions.
- Assess the impact of political power monopolization on urban development metrics like trade volumes.
Strengths
- Data covers a specific 128-year historical period from 1666 to 1794.
- Focuses on a unique political reform—lottery-based elections—in Swiss city-states.
- Supports analysis of multiple outcome variables: political seat distribution, tax revenues, trade, and expenditures.
Limitations
- The specific data structure, including column names, row count, and file formats, is unknown.
- Geographic scope is limited to historical Swiss city-states, limiting generalizability.
- Historical data from this period may have gaps or inconsistencies in record-keeping.
Provenance
- Source
- ICPSR Harvested Dataverse
- Collection Method
- null
- Time Range
- 1666 to 1794
- Freshness
- null
- Geography
- Swiss city-states