We had a really nice spotlight speaker today!

Even the title was catchy: "Progress in the Pipeline: Cholera, Urban Elites, and the Provision of Sanitation Infrastructure".

The argument in the new forthcoming paper is this: During the reforms to promote human capital in the 19th century (i.e. education, such as schools and universities, and the training of skilled workers), elites also focused on promoting infrastructure to improve the health of workers, an important component of human capital that is often neglected.

The research they did was on German industrial cities and especially on large companies like Thyssen, Krupp, Bayer, and others.

Capital-owning elites benefit from a healthier workforce and therefore invest heavily in health infrastructure. Some companies like Thyssen invested up to 60% of their annual profits in sewage and fresh water supplies in the cities where they operated. (For which they have never charged a penny)

These improvements led to huge increases in the health of the workforce, and thus to a productivity boost from having better human capital.

As an example, they cite the cholera outbreak in Germany between 1865-1867, which was one of the deadliest with about 250,000 deaths. (0.5 per 100).

The regions whose cities were least affected were in the "Ruhrpott," where most of Germany's heavy industry, especially steel production, was located.

Here, sanitary conditions were much better than in the rest of Germany. This led to fewer infections and fewer deaths. Which in turn made the human capital in the region more valuable and gave the workers leverage in negotiating better working conditions or wages.

With this upcoming paper, they want to show some insights into how companies have made human conditions better without relying on the government to do it for us.

The competition between companies when there is a shortage of labor is enough to benefit society as a whole.

"Who's going to build the roads?" is such a loser question when companies like Thyssen and Krupp have already invented health insurance and built sanitation infrastructure.

Of course the market can, if you let it, anxious leftist.