Heterogenous mechanisms in WWII stress transmission: evidence from a natural experiment

Vincenzo Atella, Edoardo Di Porto and Joanna Kopinska

No 385, CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS

Abstract: This paper analyses how in utero exposure to maternal stress from WWII affects long-term health and economic outcomes and describes different mechanisms at work, showing that current health conditions are heterogeneously related to the type of fetal stressor. We exploit the Italian armistice of September 8th 1943 as exogenous variation in the war intensity, providing WWII long-run causal effects on objectively measured health and conomic outcomes. We find that in utero exposure to intense WWII events had long-lasting effects on health and that Nazi massacres predict late-onset depression, while nutritional deprivation suffered in large cities had lasting effects on diabetes. Finally, we innovate by showing that these effects increase with the age of the treated individuals.

Keywords: Fetal programming hypothesis; War exposure; Nazi massacres, Stress; Famine; Chronic diseases; Health expenditure, Long-term effects, Italy. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 O1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 44 pages
Date: 2016-06-23, Revised 2017-08-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://ceistorvergata.it/RePEc/rpaper/RP385.pdf Main text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Heterogenous Mechanisms in WWII Stress Transmission: Evidence from a Natural Experiment (2017)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rtv:ceisrp:385

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma
https://ceistorvergata.it

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEIS Research Paper from Tor Vergata University, CEIS CEIS - Centre for Economic and International Studies - Faculty of Economics - University of Rome "Tor Vergata" - Via Columbia, 2 00133 Roma. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Barbara Piazzi ().