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Married Women's Property Laws and Female Commercial Activity: Evidence from United States Patent Records, 1790–1895

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

B. Zorina Khan
B. Zorina Khan
Affiliation:
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Economics, UCLA, CA 90095; e-mail:[email protected]
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Abstract

Nineteenth-century laws granted wives previously withheld rights to their own property and earnings as well as liability for debts and contracts. I use 4,198 women's patents to assess whether these laws encouraged greater female commercial activity. Patentees were motivated by potential profits and were responsive to market incentives. Women's patenting jumped significantly in states with legal reforms and was lowest in states without such laws. Much of the subsequent increase occurred in metropolitan centers where property rights were of greater concern. Thus, by reducing transactions costs and increasing expected benefits, legal reforms arguably stimulated women's investments in patenting and commercial activities.

Type
Papers Presented at the Fifty-Fifth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 56 , Issue 2 , June 1996 , pp. 356 - 388
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1996

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