Costs and benefits of pollution control in Pennsylvania, New York, and NewJersey, 1840-1906

Judges in Pennsylvania saw the costs and benefits of protecting people from industrial pollution quite differently from judges in New York and New Jer sey between 1840 and 1906. Not only did they invoke balancing doctrine more than did judges in New York and New Jersey; but when costs and benefits we re considered, Pennsylvania judges almost always concluded that the price o f pollution abatement was too high to justify enjoining polluting industrie s. New York and New Jersey judges commonly did the reverse, acknowledging g reat social value and little cost to making businesses alleviate pollution. Judicial interpretation of the notions of cost and benefit mirrored the po litical, economic, and social conditions in each state, conditions that dif fered across time and place.