Nineteenth Century Urban Market Failure?: Chadwick on Funeral Industry Regulation

Robert Ekelund and George Ford

Journal of Regulatory Economics, 1997, vol. 12, issue 1, 27-51

Abstract: This essay analyzes the regulatory theory and policy perceptions of Edwin Chadwick (1800-1890), the premier Benthamite utilitarian reformer. We focus on and analyze Chadwick's economic diagnosis of the London funeral market in the first half of the nineteenth century. In his view, externalities and market failure in both the burial and funeral service markets demanded socialization of property rights and implementation of a franchise bidding scheme. Chadwick's rationales for government intervention, including high taxes and information costs--unique, we believe, for his time--provide the basis for numerous forms of contemporary regulations at all levels in the United States today. Copyright 1997 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1997
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