School Closures and NPIs during the Great Influenza Pandemic in Sweden

该项目的总体目标是增加我们对大流行期间学校关闭和其他非药物干预(NPI)对健康和人力资本影响的知识，1918-19年流感大流行期间适用于瑞典。在该项目范围内，我们将建立一个极其丰富的历史数据库，其中包括a)极其详细和准确的个人信息(人口、社会经济背景、居住地/学校、劳动力市场结果等)，以及b)关于大流行的时间和强度、采取的控制措施以及大量背景变量的详细的高质量综合数据。该数据库将包括当时的整个瑞典人口(540万)和所有2.500个地方当局。利用这个杰出的数据库，该项目的研究将解决三个广泛的研究问题：1)非营利组织，特别是学校关闭，对大流行的传播有预期的影响吗？在什么情况下，这些措施在哪些人群中特别有效？(2)在教育程度、劳动力市场结果和其他衡量社会经济地位的指标方面，停课对学童的长期影响是什么？(3)当地的政治权力分配如何影响制定NPI的倾向？如果政治权力集中在少数人手中，实施严厉措施是否更容易？是否有迹象表明社会精英和广大民众之间存在利益冲突？该项目是德国和丹麦研究人员之间的国际合作执行的。特别是，该项目的目的是汇集若干不同领域的互补专门知识，使之能够建立一个杰出的数据集，利用最先进的计量经济学技术对数据进行评估，并深入了解历史背景和各种相关的不同文献。大流感大流行与新冠肺炎大流行有一些惊人的相似之处(也有一些显著的区别)，因此是一个很有希望的案例研究，有助于理解当今采取的措施的一些更深层次的影响。

The overall aim of the project is to increase our knowledge on the consequences for health and human capital of school closures and other non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) during a pandemic, with an application to Sweden during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. Within the project, we will construct an exceptionally rich historical database, which includes a) extremely detailed and accurate individual-level information (demographics, socioeconomic background, place of residence/schooling, labour market outcomes, etc), and b) detailed high-quality aggregate data regarding the timing and intensity of the pandemic, measures taken to contain it, and a large number of background variables. The database will include the entire Swedish population at the time (5.4M) and all 2.500 local authorities.Using this outstanding database, research in the project will address three broad research questions: 1) Did the NPIs, in particular school closures, have the intended effect on the spread of the pandemic? Under what circumstances and in what subpopulations where the measures particularly effective? (2) What were the long-run consequences for the school children affected by the closures – in terms of educational attainment, labour market outcomes and other indicators of socioeconomic status? (3) How does the local distribution of political power affect the propensity to enact NPIs? Is it easier to implement harsh measures if political power is concentrated in the hand of a few, and are there signs that there is a conflict of interest between the elites in society and the broad masses?The project is executed as an international collaboration between researchers in Germany and Denmark. In particular, the project aims at bringing together complementary expertise in a number of different areas which enable the construction of an outstanding dataset, an evaluation of the data using state-of-the art econometric techniques, with a deep understanding of the historical context and of the various different literatures which are relevant.The results of the project would be of great interest within academia and to policy-makers and other societal stakeholders. The Great Inluenza Pandemic has some striking similarities with the COVID-19 pandemic (as well as some notable differences) and therefore represents a promising case study for understanding some of the deeper implications of measures taken today.