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 IZA Network @ LISER

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

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from IZA Network @ LISER Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Mark Fallak ().