Daniel Gallardo Albarrán (Wageningen University): “Progress in the Pipeline: Cholera, Politics and the Waterworks Revolution in Germany”

Abstract:
What explains the transition to modern sanitary infrastructures? Next to historical factors related to political economy considerations, the literature has argued that cholera outbreaks served as catalysts for public health investments. We test this hypothesis within the context of the German Empire by analyzing whether the diffusion of piped water systems was influenced by the 1866 cholera epidemic, the deadliest mortality shock in the modern history of the region. We employ a newly digitized data set covering the whole urban environment and show that this cholera outbreak altered the political equilibrium in favor of more health-related spending. This result is confirmed by an instrumental variable approach employing city-level exposure to military movements as the Austro-Prussian War unfolded in 1866. In addition, we show that cities dominated by commercial-industrial interest groups (as opposed to agricultural elites) built waterworks earlier and extended access to a larger share of the urban population.