What Happened to the U.S. Economy during the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? A View Through High-Frequency Data

Francois Velde ()

The Journal of Economic History, 2022, vol. 82, issue 1, 284-326

Abstract: An economic downturn coincided with the start of the epidemic but the recession was short and moderate, compared with that of 1920/21. Cross-sectional high-frequency data indicate that the epidemic affected the labor supply sharply but briefly with no ensuing spill-overs; most of the recession, brief as it was, was due to the end of the war. I analyze weekly city-level mortality data and economic indicators with time series methods and structural estimation of an economic-epidemiological model: interventions to hinder the contagion reduced mortality at little economic cost, probably because reduced infections mitigated the impact on the labor force.

Date: 2022
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Working Paper: What Happened to the US Economy During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? A View Through High-Frequency Data (2020)
Working Paper: What Happened to the US Economy During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? A View Through High-Frequency Data (2020)
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