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Coping with Crisis? The Diffusion of Waterworks in Late Nineteenth-Century German Towns

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

John C. Brown
John C. Brown
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Economics at Clark University, Worcester, MA 01610.
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Abstract

The article examines the diffusion of waterworks in one hundred Rhenish Prussian towns. It exploits features of the institutions of local political representation to develop and estimate a median voter model of demand for water capacity. The results suggest that rising income of the median voter and demand of industrial users, rather than crises in public health, spurred the installation of improved water supply.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Seventh Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 48 , Issue 2 , June 1988 , pp. 307 - 318
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1988

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References

1 See Hohenberg, Paul M. and Lees, Lynn Hollen, The Making of Urban Europe: 1000–1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1985), pp. 248–59, 315–20;Google ScholarKrabbe, Wolfgang, Kommunalpolitik und Industrialisierung (Münster, 1985);Google Scholar and Sutcliffe, Anthony, Towards the Planned City: Germany, Britain, the United States and France (Oxford, 1981).Google Scholar

2 See Silbergleit, Heinrich, Preussens Städte: Denkschrift zum 100 Jährigen Jubiläum der Städteordnung von 19. November 1808 (Berlin, 1908), pp. 168–69 for the urban mortality data for Prussia's 110 largest cities and tables 17(1), 19(2), and 20(2) for data on sanitary infrastructure (waterworks, sewers, and municipal slaughterhouses) as a share of debt and debt retirement expenditures for 1908;Google ScholarHoffman, Walter G. et al. , Das Wachstum der deutschen Wirtschaft seit der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts (Berlin, 1965), pp. 717–18, 789–91, for data on the growth in municipal debt and expenditures;Google Scholar and Herrfurth, Ludwig, “Beiträge zur Finanzstatistik der Gemeinden Preussen,” Zeitschrift des Königlichen Statisrichen Bureaus, 6th supplement vol. (1878) for data on expenditures in Prussian cities in 1869.Google Scholar

3 See Brown, John, “Reforming the Urban Environment: Sanitation, Housing, and Government Intervention in Germany, 1870–1910” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1987), p. 92;Google ScholarCain, Louis, “An Economic History of Urban Location and Sanitation,” Research in Economic History, 2 (1977), pp. 337–89 for evidence from the United States.Google ScholarPubMed

4 Grahn, E., Die Art der Wasserversorgung in Deutschland sowie in einigen Nachbarländern (Munich, 1898).Google Scholar

5 See Anderson, Letty, “Hard Choices: Supplying Water to New England Towns,” Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 15 (Autumn 1984), pp. 211–34. Rhenish cities relied on groundwater sources after 1872, which rules out one possible reason for rising costs: use of sand filtering technologies for surface water. Use of groundwater sources also precluded the kinds of interdependencies between sewer and water supply systems discussed in Cain, “Location and Sanitation,” pp. 340–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

6 See Hassan, J. A., “The Growth and Impact of the British Water Industry in the Nineteenth Century,” Economic History Review, 38 (11 1985), pp. 531–47;CrossRefGoogle ScholarWohl, Anthony, Endangered Lives: Public Health in Victorian Britain (Cambridge, Mass., 1983), chaps. 6, 7;Google Scholar and Rosen, Christine, “Infrastructural Improvement in Nineteenth-Century Cities: A Conceptual Framework,” Journal of Urban History, 12 (05 1986), pp. 211–56.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7 For an excellent discussion of local government, see Dawson, William, Municipal Life and Government in Germany (London, 1916);Google Scholar and Krabbe, Kommunalpolitik, pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

8 See the survey by Mueller, Dennis, Public Choice (New York, 1979).Google ScholarBergstrom, Theodore and Goodman, A., “Private Demands for Public Goods,” American Economic Review, 83 (06 1973), pp. 280–96, present the two assumptions required to ensure that the voter with the median income will also demand the median amount: demand rises or falls monotonically with income, and voters with the same income demand roughly the same amount. The restrictions on voting discussed below substantially narrowed the range of incomes of voters in the Second Class, suggesting that Prussian towns would be more likely to meet the conditions. See Brown, “Reforming the Environment,” pp. 119–20.Google Scholar

9 See Hirsch, Paul and Lindemann, Hugo, Das kommunale Wahlrecht (Berlin, 1905), pp. 1–24;Google Scholar and Croon, Helmut, Die gesellschaftliche Auswirkungen des Gemeindewahlrechts in den Gemeinden und Kreisen des Rheinlandes und Westfalens im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Cologne, 1960).Google Scholar

10 Gottstein, A., Geschichte der Hygiene (Berlin, 1901), p. 244.Google Scholar

11 See Gottstein, Geschichte, pp. 241–45;Google ScholarHelm, Dietrich, Die Cholera in Lübeck: Epidemieprophylaxe- und Bekämpfung (Neumünster, 1979);Google Scholar and Hohenberg and Lees, Urban Europe, pp. 315–20.Google Scholar Over 10 percent of the water supplied by municipal works was for public baths, public restroom facilities, and city programs of street-cleaning. See Statistisches Jahrbuch der deutschen Städte (Jena, 1891), vol. 1, p. 23.Google Scholar

12 See Condran, G. A. and Crimmins-Gardner, E. A., “Public Health Measures and Mortality in U. S. Cities in the Late Nineteenth Century,” Human Ecology, 6 (1978), pp. 27–54;CrossRefGoogle ScholarGaspari, K. Celeste and Woolf, Arthur G., “Income, Public Works, and Mortality in Early Twentieth-Century Cities,” this JOURNAL, 45 (06 1985), pp. 355–61;Google ScholarPubMedHassan, “British Water Industry,” pp. 540–43; and Krabbe, Kommunalpolitik, p. 202.Google Scholar

13 See Sutcliffe, Planned City, pp. 22–28.Google Scholar This discussion also draws on Niskanen, William A., “Bureaucrats and Politicians,” Journal of Law and Economics, 18 (12 1975), pp. 617–43;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Romer, T. and Rosenthal, H., “Bureaucrats and Voters: On the Political Economy of Resource Allocation by Direct Democracy,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 93 (11 1979), pp. 563–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Hassan, “British Water Industry,” p. 540.Google Scholar

15 Data from seven Rhenish cities for the period 1873 to 1883 imply a correlation of 0.95 between income and the median tax payment for a sample of 21. Compare also Malstatt-Burbach, where Einkommensteuer accounted for 15 percent of total income-based taxes and the median voter's income was about 1,250 marks, with neighboring Sanct-Johann, with the same population, where Einkommensteuer were one-half of income-based taxes and the median voter earned about 3,000 marks. Poll lists (Wählerlisten) in the city archives of Cologne (402/W 14), Saarbrücken (Alt-Saarbrücken 685, 1882, 1421; Malstatt-Burbach 614, 615; and Sanct-Johann 777, 785), Solingen (Wald W394, W395, and Grafräth G691), and Duisburg (10/4151, 10/4152) provide the data on the median voter's tax payment.Google Scholar

16 The tax data used to calculate SKEW and the data on population are from Herrfurth, “Finanzstatistik”; and Ludwig Herrfurth and Max von Brincken, “Die Belastung der Preussischen Städte und Landgemeinden mit direkten Staatssteuern, Gemeindeabgaben, und sonstigen Korporationsabgaben im Jahre 1880/1881,” Zeitschrift des Königlichen Statistischen Bureaus, 9th supplement vol. (1882).Google Scholar

17 Administrative records of the Rhine Province (Regierungspräsident Rheinprovinz 403/6902, 4413/6292) and the governmental district (Bezirk) of Koblenz (441/8035) at the Hauptstaatsarchiv Koblenz and of the governmental district of Aachen (211/118, 211/6867) at the Hauptstaatsarchiv Düsseldorf provide the data on cholera epidemics. The Gemeindelexikon für das Königreich Preussen (Berlin, 1873–1874, 1887, and 1897) provides data on population and city area for 1867, 1871, 1885, 1890, and 1895.Google ScholarHerrfurth, “Beitrage” and Herrfurth and von Brincken, “Belastung,” provide population data for 1875 and 1880.Google Scholar The data on employment at the county (Kreis) level is from “Die Gewerbebetriebe im preussischen Staat nach der Aufnahme vom 5. Juni, 1882,” part 2, Preussische Statistik, vol. 83 (1885);Google Scholar and “Berufs- und Gewerbezählung vom 14. Juni 1895: Gewerbe Statistik der Verwaltungsbezirke,” Statistik des Deutschen Reichs, vol. 112 (1899).Google Scholar

18 Deputy mayors served on the executive council (Magistrat) of Prussian towns and were responsible for administering town departments. Typically, unsalaried deputy mayors, drawn from the ranks of the town council, would serve as a “counterbalance to the influence of permanent officials” (Dawson, Municipal Government, p. 89). See also Krabbe, Kommunalpolitik, pp. 176–77, for a discussion of the advance of professional administration in prewar German cities. The data for BUREAUCRAT are from the 1876 “Übersicht über die Kreise, Städte, und Gemeinden des Regierungbezirks Düsseldorf,” Duisburg City Archive (Bestand 10/3903).Google Scholar

19 While the focus on scale economies ignores potential differences in costs because of the heterogeneity of waterworks, the chief concern in instrumental variable estimation is identifying an instrument that meets the conditions for avoiding the problems of simultaneity. The resulting instrument will be consistent, if inefficient. See Kmenta, Jan, Elements of Econometrics (New York, 1971), pp. 309–13.Google Scholar Louis Cain suggested substantial improvements over an earlier formulation of this equation. Box-Cox estimation resulted in a logarithmic transformation of the cost, population, and population density variables. Grahn, Wasserversorgung, provides data on the construction cost and capacity of each waterworks. For sources on population, density, and employment, see fn. 17.Google Scholar

20 See Maddala, G. S., Limited Dependent and Qualitative Variables in Econometrics (New York, 1983), pp. 149–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 See Brown, “Reforming the Environment,” p. 167, for the sources for the rates of interest and amortization.Google Scholar

22 The data on mortality are from Silbergleit, Preussens Städe, p. 168.Google Scholar

23 The data on tax payments in 1890 are from Haus der Abgeordneten, 17. Legislaturperiode, III. Session (1890/91), Aktenstück Number 149. Changes in income tax law raised the level of income exempt from taxation and increased rates for those earning more than 3,000 marks. After 1892 a voter's payment of progressive city taxes was included in the calculation of his total tax payment. Both reforms usually reduced the number of voters in the top two classes and significantly increased the income of the median voter. Evidence from the small cities of Wald, Saarbrücken, and Malstatt-Burbach indicates that the income of the median voter rose from 70 to 150 percent between 1880 and 1895; the rise in tax payments would be higher. See the poll lists in the Solingen City Archive (W395); the Saarbrücken City Archive (Alt-Saarbrücken 1882, 1421; Malstatt-Burbach 616); and Croon, Auswirkungen, pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

24 See fn. 17 for the sources of data for cities in 1895.Google Scholar

25 The elasticity of demand with respect to population is –3.05.Google Scholar

26 Hofman, Wolfgang, “Oberbürgermeister und Stadterweiterungen,” in Croon, Helmut et al. , eds., Kommunale Selbstverwaltung im Zeitalter der Industrialisierung (Stuttgart, 1971), p. 63.Google Scholar

27 Compare this result with the emphasis on a crisis in public health in Anderson, Alan, The Origins and Resolution of an Urban Crisis: Baltimore, 1890–1930 (Baltimore, 1977).Google Scholar

28 Reclam, C., “Die heutige Gesundheitspflege und ihre Aufgaben,” Deutsche Viertaljahrschrift für Öffentliche Gesundheitspflege, 1 (1867), pp. 1–5.Google Scholar