Just a sidelight on the "smoke and laundry" externalities, this from the world of men's fashion and Beau Brummell (1778-1840). Before Beau, men's fashions were bright and colorful; the men were as pretty as the girls. But Brummell changed the fashion to plain coats, very tight pants, and pure, white shirts. The white shirt was a sign of wealth. Why? Because you couldn't clean a white shirt in London; if you hung it on the line to dry, it would turn gray from all the smoke. So wearing white shirts meant you were rich enough to send your laundry out to the countryside. The pure white shirt remained the standard for men's business and formal attire until the coming of television. The high-powered klieg lights of early TV created a bright spot when reflected off of white shirts. So first light blue shirts became the standard, which opened the way for all the other colors and patterns of men's shirts today. John On Thu, 15 Feb 2024 at 06:53, Enrique Guerra <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Also, though it does not involve a laundromat, I would also like to point > out an English case from 1867, Cooke v, Forbes, which involves a > carpet-maker whose bright-colored carpets became dull due to a neighboring > polluter. This classic case appears in Ronald Coase's classic paper on "The > problem of social cost", and I discuss it on pp. 1059-1062 of my 2023 paper > "Coase's Parable": > https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol74/iss3/9/ > <https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol74/iss3/9/> > Coase’s Parable > <https://digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu/jour_mlr/vol74/iss3/9/> > Some stories have heroes and villains. Others involve a voyage, a quest, > or a monster to be defeated. The law is no exception. Most legal stories > are about identifying wrongdoers and vindicating the rights of victims, and > this standard victim-wrongdoer model not only informs recent developments > in legal scholarship, such as feminist jurisprudence or critical race > theory; it also informs our classical liberal tradition.5 But what if harms > are reciprocal or jointly caused? In other words, what if victims are just > as responsible as wrongdoers for their plight? > digitalcommons.law.mercer.edu > Enrique > > F. E. Guerra-Pujol > University of Central Florida > ------------------------------ > *From:* Societies for the History of Economics <[log in to unmask]> on behalf > of Spencer Banzhaf <[log in to unmask]> > *Sent:* Wednesday, February 14, 2024 11:18 AM > *To:* [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> > *Subject:* [SHOE] smoke & laundry as an externalities example > > All, > The forum has been a bit quiet lately so maybe I can mix things up with a > trivia question. > > A common example of externalities in textbooks and articles in the 1970s > and '80s was the case of a factory whose smoke made it more costly for the > laundromat to clean clothes (e.g. Baumol & Oates textbook 1975; J. > Buchanan, Natural Resources J., 1973). When I was a student, I used to > think that this was a very whimsical example, but Pigou mentions it as > early as Wealth and Welfare (1912), it was included in late 19th C. > discussions of the smoke nuisance in the UK, and, as my colleague Randy > Walsh and I have discussed in a recent paper, it was quantified by > economists in Pittsburgh in 1913. > > The trouble is, we are having a hard time tracing this example from > 1912-13 to the 1970s textbooks. Medema has suggested that, in general, > there is a gap in the lit from Pigouvian external economies to 1970s > environmental externalities. We are interested in the very specific case > of this laundry example. Does anybody have any examples they could share > of economists between 1912 and, say, 1973 using this example to illustrate > externalities (loosely defined)? Recognizing that the term "externality," > is changing over time, when did this become codified as a "classic example"? > > Thanks for your thoughts and speculations, > Spencer > PS -- for those who prefer to write offline, please include Randy Walsh, > who is cc'd here (not registered w SHOE). > ———————————————————————————- > H. Spencer Banzhaf > Professor, NC State University > Director, Center for Environmental & Resource Economic Policy > -- John C. Médaille *Do not accept anything as truth which lacks love. * *Do not accept anything as love which lacks truth. -*St. Edith Stein A Dialogue on Faith, Reason, and History <https://smile.amazon.com/Theology-Mythos-Dialogue-Reason-History/dp/1621386635/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=mythos+or+logos&qid=1607219913&sr=8-1> Toward a Truly Free Market: A Distributist Perspective <http://www.amazon.com/Toward-Truly-Free-Market-Distributist/dp/1935191810/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280082231&sr=1-2> The Vocation of Business: Social Justice in the Marketplace <http://www.amazon.com/Vocation-Business-Social-Justice-Marketplace/dp/0826428096/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280082193&sr=8-1> The Front Porch Republic <https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/>