What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? The Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic on Economic Performance in Sweden

Martin Karlsson, Therese Nilsson () and Stefan Pichler ()

No 2012:7, Working Papers from Lund University, Department of Economics

Abstract: We study the impact of the 1918 influenza pandemic on economic performance in Sweden. The pandemic was one of the severest and deadliest pandemics in human history, but it has hitherto received only scant attention in the economic literature despite important implications for modern-day pandemics. In this paper, we exploit seemingly exogenous variation in incidence rates between Swedish regions to estimate the impact of the pandemic. Using difference in-differences and high-quality administrative data from Sweden, we estimate the effects on earnings, capital returns and poverty. We find that the pandemic led to a significant increase in poverty rates. There is also relatively strong evidence that capital returns were negatively affected by the pandemic. On the other hand, we find robust evidence that the influenza had no discernible effect on earnings. This finding is surprising since it goes against most previous empirical studies as well as theoretical predictions.

Keywords: Spanish Flu; Difference-in-Differences (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I18 J31 O40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 58 pages
Date: 2012-03-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/portalfiles/portal/194823131/WP12_7 Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? The Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic on Economic Performance in Sweden (2012)
Working Paper: What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger? The Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic on Economic Performance in Sweden (2012)
Working Paper: What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger? The Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu Epidemic on Economic Performance in Sweden (2012)
Working Paper: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger? The impact of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic on economic performance in Sweden (2012)
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