Smoke from Factory Chimneys: The Applied Economics of Air Pollution in the Progressive Era
H. Spencer Banzhaf & Randall Walsh
Abstract
Like today, one hundred years ago air pollution was a matter of grave concern in the world's most polluted cities. In the wake of its famous 1908–9 social survey, the City of Pittsburgh commissioned an “Economic Survey of Pittsburgh” from J. T. Holdsworth, a prominent institutional economist at the University of Pittsburgh. Although wide ranging, the report opened by stating that “the first fundamental need in Pittsburgh is the eradication of smoke.” This report was followed by a series of Smoke Investigations, in which, astonishingly, jars were placed around the city and the ash weighed monthly. John J. O'Connor, a staff economist, estimated the economic costs from this smoke, arguably the first damage-cost study. We show how O'Connor's work, situated in social survey, urban planning, and conservation movements, is a product of the Progressive Era, but how at the same time it appears as a conspicuous example of how environmental economics could eventually evolve out of this intellectual context.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.