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Coal Smoke, City Growth, and the Cost of the Industrial Revolution
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Coal Smoke, City Growth, and the Cost of the Industrial Revolution

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  • W. Walker Hanlon

Abstract

This article provides the first rigorous estimates of how industrial air pollution from coal burning affects long-run city growth. I introduce a new theoretically grounded strategy for estimating this relationship and apply it to data from highly polluted British cities from 1851 to 1911. I show that local industrial coal use substantially reduced long-run city employment and population growth. Moreover, a counterfactual analysis suggests that plausible improvements in coal-use efficiency would have led to a higher urbanisation rate in Britain by 1911. These findings contribute to our understanding of the effects of air pollution and the environmental costs of industrialisation.
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  • W. Walker Hanlon, 2018. "Coal Smoke, City Growth, and the Cost of the Industrial Revolution," Working Papers 18-21, New York University, Leonard N. Stern School of Business, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ste:nystbu:18-21
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