The Determinants of Progressive Era Reform: The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906

Marc Law and Gary Libecap

No 10984, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We examine three theories of Progressive Era regulation: public interest, industry capture, and information manipulation by the federal bureaucracy and muckraking press. Based on analysis of qualitative legislative histories and econometric evidence, we argue that the adoption of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act was due to all three factors. Select producer groups sought regulation to tilt the competitive playing field to their advantage. Progressive reform interests desired regulation to reduce uncertainty about food and drug quality. Additionally, rent-seeking by the muckraking press and its bureaucratic allies played a key role in the timing of the legislation. We also find that because the interests behind regulation could not shape the enforcing agency or the legal environment in which enforcement took place, these groups did not ultimately benefit from regulation in the ways originally anticipated.

JEL-codes: I1 L5 N4 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2004-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu, nep-his and nep-reg
Note: DAE
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as The Determinants of Progressive Era Reform. The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 , Marc Law, Gary D. Libecap. in Corruption and Reform: Lessons from America's Economic History , Glaeser and Goldin. 2006

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/w10984.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Chapter: The Determinants of Progressive Era Reform. The Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906 (2006)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nbr:nberwo:10984

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/w10984

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().