TABLE II.
Women’s Suffrage Laws and Municipal and State Public Finance
| Dependent Variable | Estimate | Standard Error | N | R2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Panel A: Municipal Public Finance | ||||
| ln(Total Spending) | 0.079*** | (0.029) | 3,661 | 0.97 |
| ln(Health Conservation and Sanitation Spending) | 0.061* | (0.036) | 3,661 | 0.94 |
| ln(Charities, Hospitals, and Corrections Spending) | 0.360*** | (0.105) | 3,454 | 0.92 |
| ln(Total Infrastructure Investment) | 0.012 | (0.086) | 3,658 | 0.85 |
| ln(Health Conservation and Sanitation Infrastructure Investment) | 0.152 | (0.114) | 3,629 | 0.70 |
| ln(Charities, Hospitals, and Corrections Infrastructure Investment) | 0.580** | (0.276) | 1,462 | 0.71 |
| Panel B: State Public Finance | ||||
| ln(Total Revenue) | 0.010 | (0.084) | 673 | 0.89 |
| ln(Property Tax Revenue) | 0.070 | (0.209) | 579 | 0.94 |
| ln(Total Spending) | −0.057 | (0.088) | 688 | 0.87 |
| ln(Highway Spending) | 0.300 | (0.215) | 667 | 0.90 |
| ln(Education Spending) | 0.137 | (0.157) | 689 | 0.75 |
| ln(Social Service Spending) | 0.206*** | (0.071) | 688 | 0.84 |
Municipal public finance data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census’ Statistics of Cities Having a Population of Over 30,000 and Financial Statistics of Cities Having a Population of Over 30,000 ; state public finance data from Sylla, Legler, and Wallis ICPSR Study # 9728 and the U.S. Bureau of the Census’ Financial Statistics of States . Estimates and standard errors (in parentheses, clustered by state) shown for the women’s suffrage law dummy variable obtained by estimating equation 1 (controlling for state and year fixed effects and state-specific linear time trends, with city fixed effects subsitituted for state fixed effects in the municipal public finance regressions). The municipal public finance sample contains city-year observations from years 1905-1909, 1909-1913, 1915-1919, and 1921-1930; the state public finance sample contains state-year observations from years 1900-1919 and 1921-1930. Spending (“cost payments”) are defined as “payments of cities and other municipalities for their expenses, interest, and outlays, less amounts which have been returned or are to be returned by reason of error or otherwise.” Infrastructure investment (“outlays”) are defined as “the costs of property, including land, buildings and equipment, and public improvements more or less permanent in character.”
p<0.10
p<0.05
p<0.01.