IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/apandp/v112y2022p193-98.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Segregation and the Initial Provision of Water in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Brian Beach
  • John Parman
  • Martin Saavedra

Abstract

US cities invested heavily in water and sewer infrastructure throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These investments improved public health and quality of life by helping US cities control typhoid fever and other waterborne diseases. We show that segregated cities invested in water infrastructure earlier but were slower to reach universal access and slower to eliminate typhoid fever. We develop a theoretical model that illustrates how segregation, by facilitating the exclusion of Black households from water and sewer systems, explains these seemingly paradoxical findings.

Suggested Citation

  • Brian Beach & John Parman & Martin Saavedra, 2022. "Segregation and the Initial Provision of Water in the United States," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 193-198, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:112:y:2022:p:193-98
    DOI: 10.1257/pandp.20221067
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20221067
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20221067.appx
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.aeaweb.org/doi/10.1257/pandp.20221067.ds
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1257/pandp.20221067?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Albers, Thilo N.H. & Kappner, Kalle, 2023. "Perks and pitfalls of city directories as a micro-geographic data source," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    2. Daniel Gallardo-Albarrán, 2024. "The Global Sanitary Revolution in Historical Perspective," Working Papers 0247, European Historical Economics Society (EHES).

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • H75 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - State and Local Government: Health, Education, and Welfare
    • H76 - Public Economics - - State and Local Government; Intergovernmental Relations - - - Other Expenditure Categories
    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • J15 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Economics of Minorities, Races, Indigenous Peoples, and Immigrants; Non-labor Discrimination
    • L95 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Gas Utilities; Pipelines; Water Utilities
    • N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913
    • N91 - Economic History - - Regional and Urban History - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:apandp:v:112:y:2022:p:193-98. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.