Investigating survivorship bias: The case of the 1918 flu pandemic

Joël Floris, Laurent Kaiser, Harald Mayr, Kaspar Staub and Ulrich Woitek

No 316, ECON - Working Papers from Department of Economics - University of Zurich

Abstract: Estimates of the effect of fetal health shocks may suffer from survivorship bias. The fetal origins literature seemingly agrees that survivorship bias is innocuous in the sense that it induces a bias toward zero. Arguably, however, selective mortality can imply a bias away from zero. In the case of the 1918 flu pandemic, a suppressed immune system may have been protective against the most severe consequences of infection. We use historical birth records from the maternity hospital of Bern, Switzerland, to evaluate this possibility. Our results suggest that a careful consideration of survivorship bias is imperative for the evaluation of the 1918 flu pandemic and other fetal health shocks.

Keywords: Fetal origins; 1918 flu pandemic; survivorship bias (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I10 I15 I18 J24 N34 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-01, Revised 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-his
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Journal Article: Investigating survivorship bias: the case of the 1918 flu pandemic (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zur:econwp:316

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