Missing Men: Second World War Casualties and Structural Change

Christoph Eder

Economica, 2022, vol. 89, issue 354, 437-460

Abstract: A large literature has documented the persistent effects of historic events. This paper studies the effects of a historical demographic shock, documenting persistent effects that are historically contingent. I exploit military Second World War (WWII) casualties in Austrian municipalities as a natural experiment for a negative population shock, and study the economic consequences until today. In the short run, WWII casualties lead to structural transformation: labour is reallocated from agriculture towards manufacturing. This effect persists for decades. But instead of more economic development in the long run, WWII casualties led to a lower concentration of jobs and lower wages today. A more detailed analysis shows that in high‐casualty municipalities, employment increased predominantly in low‐skill industries within manufacturing, and these municipalities missed out on the transition to the service sector around the turn of the century.

Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecca.12408

Related works:
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:bla:econom:v:89:y:2022:i:354:p:437-460

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0013-0427

Access Statistics for this article

Economica is currently edited by Frank Cowell, Tore Ellingsen and Alan Manning

More articles in Economica from London School of Economics and Political Science Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().