Do Pandemics Change Healthcare? Evidence from the Great Influenza

Rui Esteves, Kris James Mitchener, Peter Nencka and Melissa Thomasson ()

No 30643, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: Using newly digitized U.S. city-level data on hospitals, we explore how pandemics alter preferences for healthcare. We find that cities with higher levels of mortality during the Great Influenza of 1918-1919 subsequently expanded hospital capacity by more than cities experiencing less influenza mortality: cities in the top half of the mortality distribution increased their count of hospitals by 8-10 percent in the years after the pandemic. This effect persisted to 1960 and was driven by increases in non-governmental hospitals. Growth responded most in richer cities, exacerbating existing inequalities in access to healthcare. We do not find evidence that government-run hospitals or other types of city-level spending related to healthcare responded to pandemic intensity, suggesting that large health shocks do not necessarily lead to increased public provision of health services.

JEL-codes: I11 I14 J10 N32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-ure
Note: DAE EH
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Working Paper: Do Pandemics Change Healthcare? Evidence from the Great Influenza (2022)
Working Paper: Do Pandemics Change Healthcare? Evidence from the Great Influenza (2022)
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