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Women's Liberation as a Financial Innovation
Author(s) -
HAZAN MOSHE,
WEISS DAVID,
ZOABI HOSNY
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
the journal of finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 18.151
H-Index - 299
eISSN - 1540-6261
pISSN - 0022-1082
DOI - 10.1111/jofi.12829
Subject(s) - demise , doctrine , shock (circulatory) , property rights , real estate , economics , industrialisation , exploit , financial system , capital (architecture) , market economy , business , finance , law , political science , computer security , computer science , medicine , archaeology , history , microeconomics
In one of the greatest extensions of property rights in human history, common law countries began giving rights to married women in the 1850s. Before this “women's liberation,” the doctrine of coverture strongly incentivized parents of daughters to hold real estate, rather than financial assets such as money, stocks, or bonds. We exploit the staggered nature of coverture's demise across U.S. states to show that women's rights led to shifts in household portfolios, a positive shock to the supply of credit, and a reallocation of labor toward nonagriculture and capital‐intensive industries. Investor protection thus deepened financial markets, aiding industrialization.