Epidemics and the Economy- An Economic Analysis of the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic in Scandinavia

流行病与经济 - 对 1918 年斯堪的纳维亚半岛西班牙流感大流行的经济分析

• 批准号: 250859189
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Martin Karlsson
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Lehrstuhl für VWL, insb. Gesundheitsökonomik
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2013-12-31 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/250859189?language=en
• 关键词: Epidemics; Economy; Economic; Analysis; 1918

For more than a century, life expectancy has been increasing in most Western societies, and less developed countries follow path. One rapidly evolving strand of the literature suggests that early life conditions matter to a much larger extent than previously acknowledged. Accordingly, the disease environment in utero and during childhood may have severe consequences throughout the life cycle and even for subsequent generations.However, one aspect which has been largely overlooked in the previous literature is the fundamental identification problem associated with an in utero exposure to disease. Beside children, who belong to the most vulnerable members of Society- pregnant women do as well, and it is well-known that health and socio-economic outcomes of mothers and their children stand in a complex relationship to each other. Thus, establishing that the in utero disease environment does matter is not sufficient to understand why and how it matters.In order to study this issue, we focus our attention on the so-called Spanish flu pandemic. This pandemic, which travelled the world between 1918 and 1920 forms an ideal setting for this analysis, for several reasons. First, sufficient time has elapsed for most of the long term effects of the pandemic to have worked out fully. Second, the Spanish flu pandemic claimed a death toll large enough to have had repercussions on the economy. Third, it has been claimed that the disease was blind in the sense that it did not have a clear socioeconomic gradient which would mean that the pandemic forms an excellent natural experiment. In particular, we aim at analyzing three distinct groups of research questions with high-quality data from Scandinavia 1) Analyzing spatial and socioeconomic patterns in the spread of the pandemicWas there a socioeconomic gradient in the mortality and morbidity related to the pandemic?Since the time period was characterized by large flows of working-age people moving between locations, did the pandemic lead to avoidance behaviour and disrupted internal migration flows?2) Short- and long-term effects of influenza exposureWhat are effects of in utero exposure on child mortality and adult outcomes (educational, incomes, employment) and did parental background factors and selective mortality bias estimates of previous studies?Did the in utero exposure run primarily through the mother's health shock (pregnancy scarring) as opposed to the health shock possibly experienced by the child (fetal exposure) or is there are third mechanism that influences the quality of parenting but have little to do with influenza during pregnancy (maternal scarring)?3) Macroeconomic implications of the pandemicWhat were the short- and medium-term effects of the pandemic on macroeconomic outcomes such as wages, capital returns and poverty rates?How does the economy adjust to a new long run equilibrium after a substantial one period shock to labor supply and human capital?

世纪以来，大多数西方社会的预期寿命一直在增长，欠发达国家也在增长。一个迅速发展的文献表明，早期生活条件的重要性比以前认识到的要大得多。因此，子宫内和儿童期的疾病环境可能对整个生命周期甚至对后代产生严重的影响，然而，在以前的文献中，有一个方面在很大程度上被忽视了，那就是与子宫内疾病暴露相关的基本识别问题。除了属于社会最脆弱成员的儿童之外，孕妇也是如此，众所周知，母亲及其子女的健康和社会经济结果相互之间存在着复杂的关系。因此，确定子宫内疾病环境确实重要，并不足以理解为什么和如何重要。为了研究这个问题，我们把注意力集中在所谓的西班牙流感大流行上。1918年至1920年期间在世界各地流行的这一大流行病为这一分析提供了一个理想的背景，原因有几个。首先，疫情的大部分长期影响已经过了足够长的时间才得以充分发挥。其次，西班牙流感大流行造成的死亡人数之多，足以对经济产生影响。第三，有人声称，这种疾病是盲目的，因为它没有明显的社会经济梯度，这意味着这种流行病形成了一个极好的自然实验。特别是，我们的目标是用斯堪的纳维亚半岛的高质量数据分析三组不同的研究问题1） 分析流行病传播的空间和社会经济模式与流行病有关的死亡率和发病率是否存在社会经济梯度？由于这一时期的特点是大量工作年龄人口在不同地点之间流动，大流行病是否导致了回避行为并扰乱了国内移徙流动？（二） 流感病毒的短期和长期影响子宫内暴露对儿童死亡率和成人结局（教育、收入、就业）有何影响？父母背景因素和先前研究的选择性死亡率偏倚估计值有何影响？子宫内暴露是否主要通过母亲的健康休克（妊娠疤痕）而不是孩子可能经历的健康休克（胎儿暴露）来进行，或者是否存在影响养育质量但与妊娠期间的流感（母体疤痕）关系不大的第三种机制？第三章 大流行病对宏观经济的影响大流行病对工资、资本回报和贫困率等宏观经济结果有哪些短期和中期影响？在劳动力供给和人力资本经历了一段时间的冲击后，经济如何调整到一个新的长期均衡？