The Role of Social Contact in the Infectious Disease Spreading: Evidence from the 1918 Influenza in Sweden

Xinghua Qi
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Xinghua Qi: University of Warwick

Warwick-Monash Economics Student Papers from Warwick Monash Economics Student Papers

Abstract: Infectious disease has always been a concern to people, especially under the current COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of this paper is to find a causal relationship between social interaction and disease spreading. This paper takes the ‘Spanish Flu’ in 1918 in the background of Sweden rather than COVID to rule out some uncertainty in transmission tunnels and use railway access as proximity to social contact. Using Diff-in-Diff identification, combined with a short-term event-study design, I show that localities that have railway stations nearby are likely to have more death cases during the influenza period. I use exogenous variation in railway station emergence from initial railway plans in addition and verifying that railway indeed facilitates the disease transmission and mortality rate as well but only with limited effects.

Keywords: disease spreading; railways; 1918 Influenza; Sweden JEL classifications: Y40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wrk:wrkesp:49

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