The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Weimar Germany

Stefan Bauernschuster, Matthias Blum, Erik Hornung and Christoph Koenig

No 16291, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: How do health crises affect election results? We combine a panel of election results from 1893–1933 with spatial heterogeneity in excess mortality due to the 1918 Influenza to assess the pandemic's effect on voting behavior across German constituencies. Applying a dynamic differences-in-differences approach, we find that areas with higher influenza mortality saw a lasting shift towards left-wing parties. We argue that pandemic intensity increased the salience of public health policy, prompting voters to reward parties signaling competence in health issues. Alternative explanations such as pandemic-induced economic hardship, punishment of incumbents for inadequate policy responses, or polarization of the electorate towards more extremist parties are not supported by our findings.

Keywords: issue ownership; issue salience; voting behavior; health; elections; pandemics; Weimar Republic (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 H51 I18 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 62 pages
Date: 2023-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Published - published in: Explorations in Economic History, 2025, 96, 101648.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp16291.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The political effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Weimar Germany (2025)
Working Paper: The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Weimar Germany (2023)
Working Paper: The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Weimar Germany (2023)
Working Paper: The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Weimar Germany (2023)
Working Paper: The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Weimar Germany (2023)
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:iza:izadps:dp16291

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().