Influenza pandemics and macroeconomic fluctuations 1871–2016

Fraser Summerfield and Livio Di Matteo

Cliometrica, 2024, vol. 18, issue 2, No 4, 405-451

Abstract: Abstract This paper documents the short-run macroeconomic impacts of influenza pandemics across 16 countries spanning 1871–2016 using the Jordà–Schularick–Taylor Macrohistory Database and the Human Mortality Database. We find pandemic-induced mortality contributed meaningfully to business cycle fluctuations in the post 1870 era. We identify negative causal impacts on the cyclical component of GDP using pandemics to instrument for working-age mortality. The analysis of short-run economic outcomes extends literature dominated by long-run economic growth outcomes and case studies of several specific health shocks such as the Black Death, Spanish Flu or COVID-19. Our findings illustrate that less catastrophic pandemics still have important economic implications.

Keywords: Pandemics; Business cycles; Mortality; GDP fluctuations; Health shocks (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 I18 N10 N30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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DOI: 10.1007/s11698-023-00269-w

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