Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps

Dora L. Costa and Matthew Kahn ()

No 11825, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Twenty-seven percent of the Union Army prisoners captured July 1863 or later died in captivity. At Andersonville the death rate may have been as high as 40 percent. How did men survive such horrific conditions? Using two independent data sets we find that friends had a statistically significant positive effect on survival probabilities and that the closer the ties between friends as measured by such identifiers as ethnicity, kinship, and the same hometown the bigger the impact of friends on survival probabilities.

JEL-codes: I12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-net and nep-soc
Date: 2005-12
Note: DAE
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Journal Article: Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps (2007)
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