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The Geographical Review April 1998, Vol. 88 (2), pp. 219-240 COSTS AND BENEFITS OF POLLUTION CONTROL IN PENNSYLVANIA,NEW YORK, AND NEW JERSEY, 1840-1906 CHRISTING MEISNER ROSEN ABSTRACT: Judges in Pennsylvania saw the costs and benefits of protectingpeople from industrial pollution quite differently from judgesin New York and New Jersey between 1840 and 1906. Not only didthey invoke balancing doctrine more than did judges in New Yorkand New Jersey; but when costs and benefits were considered, Pennsylvaniajudges almost always concluded that the price of pollution abatementwas too high to justify enjoining polluting industries. New Yorkand New Jersey judges commonly did the reverse, acknowledginggreat social value and little cost to making businesses alleviatepollution. Judicial interpretations of the notions of cost andbenefit mirrored the political, economic, and social conditionsin each state, conditions that differed across time and place. Keywords: balancing doctrine, cost-benefit analysis, nuisance case law, pollution, social structure, state courts DR. ROSEN is an associate professor of business and public policy at the Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720.