Market Failures and State Successes in Public Health and Highways 1830-1912 - Romola Davenport

When governments face major public health challenges, there's a perennial debate about whether the government should step in, and, if so, whether throwing money at the problem is going to produce better outcomes or is private provision more efficient. This is a debate that has been going on for several centuries and that affects all societies.
To address this question, we turned to 19th century England. At the start of our study in 1850, half the English population lived in towns or cities. At the end of our period, in 1910, 80% of the population lived in urban centres. And that's very much where the rest of the world is heading.
The public health challenge that we investigate is major waterborne diseases: typhoid, cholera, dysentery.
How do we investigate this?
At the beginning of our period, almost all waterworks in cities and towns were privately owned but by the end of our period, most were publicly owned so we're able to track death rates in the largest towns and when waterworks became publicly owned and how much governments invested in water supplies and in sewerage.
Find out more about Romola Davenport’s Keynes Fund project with co-PIs Dr. Leigh Shaw-Taylor and Prof. Toke Aidt on the Keynes Fund website: www.keynesfund...