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What Happened to the US Economy During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic? A View Through High-Frequency Data

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... 3 We do not identify impacts that propagate through investment, for example. Short-run stock market effects of the Spanish Flu were relatively inconsequential in the USA and UK (Beach et al. 2022;Velde 2020). Bloom et al. (2022) suggest that physical and human capital impacts occur in the long run and are best captured through multisector growth models like Kuhn and Prettner (2016). ...
... Rights reserved. 19021921Belgium 19191870-19131919Canada 19341921Denmark 1880-19461953-195619601870Finland 19141878France 1880-19131920-193819491870Italy 1886-191419221872Japan 1885-183819571946Netherlands 1870-19141921-193919481870Norway 1880-193919471870Portugal 19531940Spain 1880-193519401908Sweden 18701870Switzerland 1885-191319481876UK 18701922USA 18701933 Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
... Rights reserved. 19021921Belgium 19191870-19131919Canada 19341921Denmark 1880-19461953-195619601870Finland 19141878France 1880-19131920-193819491870Italy 1886-191419221872Japan 1885-183819571946Netherlands 1870-19141921-193919481870Norway 1880-193919471870Portugal 19531940Spain 1880-193519401908Sweden 18701870Switzerland 1885-191319481876UK 18701922USA 18701933 Content courtesy of Springer Nature, terms of use apply. Rights reserved. ...
Article
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This paper documents the short-run macroeconomic impacts of influenza pandemics across 16 countries spanning 1871–2016 using the Jordà–Schularick–Taylor Macrohistory Database and the Human Mortality Database. We find pandemic-induced mortality contributed meaningfully to business cycle fluctuations in the post 1870 era. We identify negative causal impacts on the cyclical component of GDP using pandemics to instrument for working-age mortality. The analysis of short-run economic outcomes extends literature dominated by long-run economic growth outcomes and case studies of several specific health shocks such as the Black Death, Spanish Flu or COVID-19. Our findings illustrate that less catastrophic pandemics still have important economic implications.
... underline that no previous infectious disease outbreak, including the Spanish Flu, has impacted the stock market as forcefully as the COVID-19 pandemic. Even [12] underlines that 1918 influenza epidemic coincided with the start of a mild recession from which the economy rebounded quickly and US stock market did quite well during the epidemic [3]. underlines that the COVID-19 pandemic is causing a direct global destructive economic impact that is present in every area of the globe. ...
... In Table 4, we record the impact dates of stocks crash and stock gain dates with values of stock index on these dates. While stock market crashes started in February 19, 2020 in 9 stock markets 12 In bold, the selected models for each series. 12 We may speculate that the Covid-19 connected stock market declines might start due to declines in the leading US stock market indexes. ...
... While stock market crashes started in February 19, 2020 in 9 stock markets 12 In bold, the selected models for each series. 12 We may speculate that the Covid-19 connected stock market declines might start due to declines in the leading US stock market indexes. In this respect DJIA, Nasdaq and S&P500 indexes were the highest in 19 Feb 2020 and started to a historical decline in 20 Feb 2020. ...
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We examine stock market responses during the COVID-19 pandemic period using fractional integration techniques. The evidence suggests that stock markets generally follow a synchronized movement before and the stages of the pandemic shocks. We find while mean reversion significantly declines, the degree of persistence and dependence has been increased in the majority of the stock market indices in whole sample analysis covering the period of August 02, 2019 and July 09, 2020. This outcome implies increasing integration and possibly declining benefits of diversification for the global stock portfolio management.
... 2 This feature could affect insurers' actuarial models and thus impact the price of new insurance policies. More importantly, in contrast to the recent COVID-19 crisis, the Influenza epidemic was a health shock that did not coincide with a recession (e.g., Benmelech and Frydman, 2020;Velde, 2020). 1 One notable exception in the literature is Koijen and Van Nieuwerburgh (2020), who document the benefits of positive health shocks (e.g., advances in immunotherapies for cancer treatments) for life insurance companies. 2 Similarly, on March 2, 2021, reporting on a new mutation of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in Brazil, the Wall Street Journal wrote that "younger patients are being hit significantly more by ." ...
... [ INSERT TABLE 8 ABOUT HERE] Overall, there are no significant differences between high-and low-exposure insurers following the outbreak of the Influenza Pandemic. This finding is somewhat expected since the U.S. economy did not collapse due to the Influenza Pandemic (see, e.g., Benmelech and Frydman, 2020;Velde, 2020). ...
... Finally, unlike the "flight-to-safety" effect observed in investment portfolio decisions of life insurers suffering from financial shocks (e.g., Ge and Weisbach, 2021), we show that the Influenza pandemic did not impact life insurers' investment allocations across broad asset classes. This result lends credence to the view that the Influenza Pandemic, while devastating from a health perspective, had a limited impact on the U.S. economy (e.g., Benmelech and Frydman, 2020;Velde, 2020). Our paper establishes that this view is also plausible from a life insurers' investor perspective. ...
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Using a novel, hand-collected dataset of U.S. life insurance companies during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918–19, we show that high-exposure life insurers charged higher prices on new policies vis-à-vis less exposed firms. Although the disease surprisingly increased the mortality rates among younger adults, it also increased awareness of the importance of life insurance. We argue that price increases were a crucial risk management tool. Coupled with a surge in demand and coverage, it prevented further financial distress. While devastating for public health, the 1918-19 Influenza Pandemic was not too severe for the life insurance industry.
... Sobre seus efeitos para a economia dos Estados Unidos, Burns e Mitchell (1946) identificaram que a recessão econômica de 1918 foi breve e moderada, assim como Bell e Lewis (2004) encontraram limitado efeito macroeconômico em termos relativos. Velde (2020) revisitou essa questão e encontrou evidências de que houve recessão econômica, mas ela foi leve e breve, sendo visível seu impacto, mas não tão importante como a recessão de 1920-21. Assim, apesar do grande choque demográfico, a pandemia de 1918 teve impacto limitado de curto prazo na economia norte-americana. ...
... No início de 1920 ocorreu uma queda acentuada no fluxo de empréstimos, com recuperação entre março e maio e nova redução acentuada até o final do ano. Essa retração em 1920 é explicada, possivelmente, por características endógenas da economia paulista e brasileira, além da crise da economia dos Estados Unidos e dos países industriais, com aumento da taxa de juros nesses países, que atingia o Brasil com o declínio dos preços de exportações do país e com a desvalorização da moeda nacional e a falta de crédito em geral (Velde, 2020;Peláez;Suzigan, 1981, p. 181 ...
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O objetivo do artigo é identificar os efeitos econômicos da pandemia de gripe espanhola que atingiu São Paulo no final de 1918, analisando fontes primárias originais. A contribuição para a historiografia econômica é o entendimento dos impactos de curto prazo para a economia paulista dessa pandemia, geralmente preteridos pela literatura econômica devido aos efeitos da Primeira Guerra Mundial. Os resultados indicam que vários setores da economia de São Paulo foram afetados no lado da oferta e da demanda em função do aumento de mortalidade em decorrência da pandemia, principalmente no último trimestre de 1918. As implicações foram visíveis no investimento privado, com a queda do registro de empresas e empréstimos bancários, na diminuição física e de valor da produção industrial de produtos não essenciais e no aumento dos essenciais em um contexto de crise de saúde pública. No entanto, a recuperação também foi rápida, o que explica, em parte, a pouca atenção dada pela historiografia econômica para identificar os efeitos da gripe espanhola sobre a economia.
... Further, beyond the high death toll, the full impact of the 1918-1919 pandemic was realized about 60 years later. A study examining epidemiological data on individuals born in 1919, who were newborns or second-or third-trimester fetuses during the height of the pandemic, revealed that these individuals had approximately 25% more heart disease after age 60 [18]. Besides, this population exhibited an increased risk of diabetes in comparison with a similar population from a different era, including those who were older infants during the pandemic. ...
Article
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When a viral outbreak occurs, governments are obligated to protect their citizens from the diverse adverse effects of the disease. Health policymakers often have several interventions to consider based on the health of the population, as well as the cascading social and economic consequences of the possible mitigation strategies. The current outbreak of the monkeypox virus has elicited debate on the best mitigation strategy, especially given that most world economies are still recovering from the harsh economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper sought to analyze the costs and benefits of three possible strategies and determine which option has the best health outcomes and positive economic effects. A case study of Jeddah was performed, whereby a model was simulated to determine the number of infections over 28 days based on one case of the monkeypox virus. Findings reveal that the vaccination provides the best intervention, as it effectively reduces the transmission rate and prevents loss of lives in the city. From the model, only three people were infected over the research period, while no deaths were reported. Although vaccination incurs a huge direct cost at the beginning, in the long run, it saves the economy from the disease’s financial burden in terms of productivity loss from work absenteeism and premature deaths.
... Many states collected economic data at annual (or near annual) frequencies 1 CLV (2020a) do have more frequent data for another quantitative indicator of economic activity (bank deposits) but their main results rely on the FCM. Velde (2022) and Bodenhorn (2020) use high frequency data to examine the contemporaneous impact of the ‡u but their indicators are limited in scope. ...
... Some other countries that still rely on physical transfer of value, either through cash or other means have been severely hit and have needed to create new systems as well as educate their public on how to use these new online payment systems and so on. Velde, F. R. (2020) focused on the effect of the 1918 Influenza or Spanish Flu pandemic that can be compared to the current Covid-19 pandemic. This study focused on various sectors of the economy and how they were affected such as industrial production, consumer durables, and retail and so on. ...
Article
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This study looks at how banking, specifically retail banking has been affected in the eyes of the average customer due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines how the retail banking sector has been affected. The main focus is on if and how there has been a change in preference or perspective on how individuals interact with their banks. If there has been a drop in terms of service quality, response time and also an understanding of how secure they believe it is to conduct banking activities online or digitally. The study also takes a look at if individuals have used Unified Payments Interface, and their preference towards it. Furthermore, the study looks at if individual’s consumption patterns have changed and so on. The data was gathered using an online Google form that was circulated using social media, the results were then compiled, analyzed and the interpretations were made to understand how exactly the COVID-19 pandemic affected or didn’t affect the retail banking sector’s customer base.
... By comparison, according to the SIR models, were the covid -19 pandemic to go unchecked it would lead to a mortality shock similar or worse than 1918. 9 SeeBordo and Haubrich (2017) andVelde (2020). 10 See Benmelech and Frydman (2020). ...
... Because US markets were closed on 17 February, our start date is 18 February in these calculations. 3 Other works that highlight stock market responses to the pandemic include Alfaro et al. (2020), who find that changes in the anticipated trajectory of COVID-19 infections predict next-day US stock returns; Amstad et al. (2020), who find that a "COVID-19 risk attitude" index derived from internet searches helps explain national stock market moves from mid-February to late April;and Alan et al. (2020), who find that the number of active COVID-19 cases and the curvature of the active-case trajectory help predict stock market volatilities in a cross section of countries. activity in the early stages of the pandemic, conditional on global developments. ...
Article
Stock prices and workplace mobility trace out striking clockwise paths in daily data from mid-February to late May 2020. Global stock prices fell 30% from 17 February to 12 March, before mobility declined. Over the next 11 days, stocks fell another 10 percentage points as mobility dropped 40%. From 23 March to 9 April, stocks recovered half their losses and mobility fell further. From 9 April to late May, both stocks and mobility rose modestly. This dynamic plays out across the 35 countries in our sample, with notable departures in China, South Korea and Taiwan. The size of the global stock market crash in reaction to the pandemic is many times larger than a standard asset-pricing model implies. Looking more closely at the world’s two largest economies, the pandemic had greater effects on stock market levels and volatilities in the USA than in China even before it became evident that early US containment efforts would flounder. Newspaper-based narrative evidence confirms the dominant—and historically unprecedented—role of pandemic-related developments in the stock market behavior of both countries.
... Lastly, we also contribute to a strand of literature studying the consequences of the spread of communicable diseases on economic well-being (e.g. Karlsson et al., 2014;Barro et al., 2020;Correia et al., 2020;Velde, 2020). These studies mainly investigate the impact of the 1918 Spanish flu. ...
Thesis
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Inequalities in health are a prevalent feature of societies. And as societies, we condemn inequalities that are rooted in immutable circumstances such as gender, race, and parental background. Consequently, policy makers are interested in measuring and understanding the causes of health inequalities rooted in circumstances. However, identifying causal estimates of these relationships is very ambitious for reasons such as the presence of confounders or measurement error in the data. This thesis contributes to this ambitious endeavour by addressing these challenges in four chapters. In the first Chapter, I use 25 years of rich health information to describe three features of intergenerational health mobility in Germany. First, we describe the joint permanent health distribution of the parents and their children. A ten percentile increase in parental permanent health is associated with a 2.3 percentile increase in their child’s health. Second, a percentile point increase in permanent health ranks is associated with a 0.8% to 1.4% increase in permanent income for, both, children, and parents, respectively. Non-linearities in the association between permanent health and income create incentives to escape the bottom of the permanent health distribution. Third, upward mobility in permanent health varies with parental socio-economic status. In the second Chapter, we estimate the effect of maternal schooling on children’s mental health in adulthood. Using the Socio-Economic Panel and the mental health measure based on the SF-12 questionnaire, we exploit a compulsory schooling law reform to identify the causal effect of maternal schooling on children’s mental health. While the theoretical considerations are not clear, we do not find that the mother’s schooling has an effect on the mental health of the children. However, we find a positive effect on children’s physical health operating mainly through physical functioning. In addition, albeit with the absence of a reduced-form effect on mental health, we find evidence that the number of friends moderates the relationship between maternal schooling and their children’s mental health. In the third Chapter, against a background of increasing violence against non-natives, we estimate the effect of hate crime on refugees’ mental health in Germany. For this purpose, we combine two datasets: administrative records on xenophobic crime against refugee shelters by the Federal Criminal Office and the IAB-BAMF-SOEP Survey of Refugees. We apply a regression discontinuity design in time to estimate the effect of interest. Our results indicate that hate crime has a substantial negative effect on several mental health indicators, including the Mental Component Summary score and the Patient Health Questionnaire-4 score. The effects are stronger for refugees with closer geographic proximity to the focal hate crime and refugees with low country-specific human capital. While the estimated effect is only transitory, we argue that negative mental health shocks during the critical period after arrival have important long-term consequences. In the last Chapter of this thesis, we investigate how the economic consequences of the pandemic and the government-mandated measures to contain its spread affect the self-employed – particularly women– in Germany. For our analysis, we use representative, real-time survey data in which respondents were asked about their situation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings indicate that among the self-employed, who generally face a higher likelihood of income losses due to COVID-19 than employees, women are 35% more likely to experience income losses than their male counterparts. We do not find a comparable gender gap among employees. Our results further suggest that the gender gap among the self-employed is largely explained by the fact that women disproportionately work in industries that are more severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our analysis of potential mechanisms reveals that women are significantly more likely to be impacted by government-imposed restrictions, e.g., the regulation of opening hours. We conclude that future policy measures intending to mitigate the consequences of such shocks should account for this considerable variation in economic hardship.
... The second-and deadlier-wave came at the end of August 1918, starting in Boston. Velde (2020) highlights that mortality rates peaked at the end of 1918. The third wave, less severe, began in the Spring of 1919. ...
Preprint
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No. We document two empirical facts for the U.S. life insurance sector during the 1918-19 Influenza pandemic. First, we find no significant differences among U.S. insurers' profitability after 1918. Second, there were fewer insurers in distress after the pandemic outbreak. Using synthetic control methods, we argue that the demand increase for new life insurance policies mitigated financial difficulties for insurers. While catastrophic from a public health perspective, the pandemic was a "blessing in disguise" for the insurance industry.
... percent of the population and led to a historic downturn in the economy (Beach et al., 2020). However, the pandemic only led to a brief V-shaped recession (Velde, 2020). ...
Article
Since COVID-19 broke out, there has been renewed interest in understanding the economic and social dynamics of historical and more recent epidemics and pandemics, from the plagues of Antiquity to modern-day outbreaks like Ebola. These events can have significant impacts on the interplay between poverty and social cohesion, i.e. how different groups in society interact and cooperate to survive and prosper. To that effect, this paper provides a theory-driven overview of how social responses to past epidemics and pandemics were determined by the epidemiological and non-epidemiological characteristics of these outbreaks, with a particular focus on the conditions giving rise to scapegoating and persecution of minority groups, including migrants. We discuss existing theories as well as historical and quantitative studies, and highlight the cases where epidemics and pandemics may lead to milder or more severe forms of scapegoating. Finally, we conclude with a summary of priorities for future research on epidemics, pandemics and social conflict and discuss the possible effects and policy implications of COVID-19.
... Bloom et al. (2021) suggest that impacts on physical capital, human capital through education, and structural changes comprise long-run impacts that would be captured only through a multisector growth model similar to Kuhn and Prettner (2016). The empirical record supports this modeling decision: short-run stock market effects of the Spanish Flu were relatively inconsequential in the US and UK (Beach et al., 2021;Velde, 2020). ...
Preprint
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COVID-19 and the associated economic disruption is not a unique pairing. Catastrophic health events including the Black Death and the Spanish Flu also featured major economic disruptions. This paper focuses on significant health shocks during 1870-2016 from a singular virus: influenza. Our analysis builds on a literature dominated by long-run analyses by documenting the causal impact of influenza pandemics on short-run macroeconomic fluctuations. We examine 16 developed economies combining the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macro History Database with the Human Mortality Database. Our results reveal important negative impacts. Further, we illustrate that these effects operate through different channels over time. Prior to vaccines, pandemic-induced mortality was responsible for economic contractions while modern flu-induced cycles appear to arise because of pandemic-induced consumption decreases.
... Comparing the estimates of the economic damages of the different pandemics over time suggests a downward trend for affected countries. This is combined with a secular trend in favor of smaller death rates (Beveridge, 1991;Viboud et al., 2005Viboud et al., , 2016Miller et al., 2009;Keogh-Brown et al., 2010;Barro et al., 2020;Geloso and Bologna Pavlik, 2020;Velde, 2020). of economic freedom on poorer individuals. All of the points above should be understood as a call to (intellectual) arms. ...
Article
What is the relationship, if any, between economic freedom and pandemics? This paper addresses this question from a robust political economy approach. As is the case with recovery from natural disasters or warfare, a society that is relatively free economically offers economic actors greater flexibility to adapt to pandemics. We argue that societies that are more economically free will be more robust to the impact from pandemics, illustrated by shorter time for economic recovery. We illustrate this relationship by testing how initial levels of economic freedom (at the start of the major influenza pandemics of the 20th century) temper contractions and accelerate recoveries for 20 OECD countries.
... The Spanish Flu unfolded in a very different social, political, and economic context than the current pandemic. Agriculture and Manufacturing accounted for 61% of employment then, as compared to 10% now (Velde 2020). The first wave of the Spanish Flu in Spring 1918 occurred during the last stages of World War I, and the deadlier second wave from September 1918 to February 1919 overlapped with the end of the war and the demobilization of troops. ...
Article
No previous infectious disease outbreak, including the Spanish Flu, has affected the stock market as forcefully as the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, previous pandemics left only mild traces on the U.S. stock market. We use text-based methods to develop these points with respect to large daily stock market moves back to 1900 and with respect to overall stock market volatility back to 1985. We also evaluate potential explanations for the unprecedented stock market reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic. The evidence we amass suggests that government restrictions on commercial activity and voluntary social distancing, operating with powerful effects in a service-oriented economy, are the main reasons the U.S. stock market reacted so much more forcefully to COVID-19 than to previous pandemics in 1918–1919, 1957–1958, and 1968.
... US output effects of the Spanish Flu appeared to be only transitory in nature and primarily reflected in a negative labour supply shock. Velde [7] uses high frequency data to show how this negative labour supply shock is confirmed by coal industry data, but finds that this impact was very brief and not accompanied by any major demandside or balance sheet effects. Although some familiar containment measures were applied, including closing churches, schools and places of entertainment, banning mass gatherings and requiring masks, the enforcement of these controls was uneven across the country and much shorter in duration than the lockdowns later employed in the face of the 2020 coronavirus. ...
Article
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The 1918-1919 Spanish Flu represented the biggest worldwide health threat prior to the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. Although its mortality effects have been widely studied, much less has been done to assess its economic and financial impact. This mini review incorporates findings from recent studies of the Spanish Flu's effect on economic performance and stock market performance in the United States and worldwide. Although US impacts may have been very short-lived, more pervasive effects seem evident in other countries. It also appears that contemporary stock market participants reacted significantly, and negatively, to the surging death rates that were seen during the Spanish Flu.
... The second-and deadlier-wave came at the end of August 1918, starting in Boston. Velde (2020) highlights that mortality rates peaked at the end of 1918. The third wave, less severe, began in the Spring of 1919. ...
Article
No. We document two empirical facts for the U.S. life insurance sector during the 1918–19 Influenza pandemic. First, we find no significant differences among U.S. insurers’ profitability after 1918. Second, there were fewer insurers in distress after the pandemic outbreak. Using synthetic control methods, we argue that the demand increase for new life insurance policies mitigated financial difficulties for insurers. While catastrophic from a public health perspective, the pandemic was a “blessing in disguise” for the insurance industry.
... Notwithstanding the much higher death rate, output effects of the Spanish Flu appeared to be only short-lived and primarily reflected in a negative labor supply shock (Velde, 2020). Financial disruption also appeared to be short-term in nature. ...
Article
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Although the Federal Reserve's quantitative easing of early 2020 was comparable in scale to 2008-2009, the implications for the growth of money in circulation and future inflationary pressures appear quite different. Absent the unprecedented surge in bank excess reserve ratios seen in 2008 and after, massive monetary base increases imply the possibility of a much larger, and potentially worrisome, increase in the money in circulation. Rising inflation expectations are implied by such phenomena as the surging demand for Treasury Inflation Protected Securities and record highs for gold prices during the summer of 2020. These trends lend some support to market participants evincing concern that the surging money growth is, in fact, a precursor to future inflation. Historical perspective on the 2020 situation is provided by data from the time of the 1918-1919 Spanish flu and available documentation of inflation following medieval and Roman-era pandemics. Indications of extra upward pressure on prices arising from pent-up spending after the epidemic has passed include the surge in bank loans in the aftermath of the 1918-1919 Spanish Flu pandemic. JEL codes: E65; N20; N23
... This analysis is limited to annual data, however, thereby abstracting from the dramatic month-to-month fluctuations in the death rate that were especially pronounced around the October-November 1918 peak. Velde's (2020) analysis of the US economy at this time suggests that it is important to consider shorter-term variations. US output suffered from a negative labor supply shock, as confirmed by coal industry data, but Velde finds that the impact was very brief and not accompanied by any major demand-side or balance sheet effects. ...
Article
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The coronavirus pandemic in 2020 was the most devastating worldwide health threat since the 1918-1919 Spanish flu. Panel regression analysis for ten countries suggests that European and US stock markets reacted significantly, and negatively, to the surging death rates that were seen during the Spanish Flu. It is possible that the greater death rates for the Spanish Flu visa -vis the coronavirus account for stock market effects being more evident in 1918-1919 than in 2020. JEL codes: G15; N22; N24
... Maliszewska et al. (2020); Pindyck (2020); and Stock (2020) study the macroeconomic and trade effects and shock transmission of the COVID-19 pandemic. For historical lessons from previous pandemics, see Barro et al. (2020); Greenwood et al. (2019); Jordà et al. (2020); and Velde (2020). Leiva-Leon et al. (2020) have developed a nowcasting COVID-19 global recession risk indicator. ...
Article
The People’s Bank of China (PBoC) has implemented numerous measures to cushion the impacts of the COVID-19 health crisis on the Chinese economy. Since the current monetary policy framework features a multi-instrument mix of liquidity tools and pricing signals, we employ a dynamic-factor modelling approach to derive a composite indicator of China’s monetary policy stance. Our quantitative assessment shows that the PBoC’s policy response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has been swift and decisive. Specifically, our estimates reveal that the PBoC has implemented novel policy measures to ensure that commercial banks maintain liquidity access and credit provision during the COVID-19 crisis.
... From there, the policy responses from government were haphazard and generally involved local governments attempting nonpharmaceutical interventions such as school closings, prohibitions on public gatherings, and quarantine measures (Markel et al. 2007). The effects of nonpharmaceutical interventions, while probably reducing the spread of the diseases (Barro 2020;Markel et al. 2007), further slowed economic activity (Velde 2020). No measures of economic stimulus of consequence were adopted specifically to help cope with the shock. 1 Estimates concerning the effects of this pandemic on economic activity differ. ...
Article
The 1918 flu pandemic constituted an exogenous shock on economic activity. In this paper, we condition the economic importance of these shocks on the level of economic freedom measured by the HIEL project (Prados de la Escosura 2016) to test whether freer economies fared better. Our argument is that higher levels of economic freedom meant a greater ability to adjust to shocks by reducing frictions in the reallocation of resources and the reorganization of economic activity. We find that higher levels of economic freedom mitigated the pandemic's effect. We link this finding with the literature on economic freedom and crises.
... Finally, the historic period in which the 1918 pandemic unfolded presents another sharp contrast to COVID-19. Because of the impact of World War I, despite the mass casualties inflicted by the 1918 flu, the resulting economic contraction proved relatively minor (see Velde, 2020;and Benmelech and Frydman, 2020). The demand generated by the war effort boosted economic recovery in ways for which there is no parallel in today's environment. ...
Article
Many observers seeking historical precedent for COVID-19 draw on the 1918 influenza pandemic. In this Commentary, we highlight the differences between the 1918 flu and COVID-19 pandemics in terms of the most significantly affected populations. We also show key differences in the US economy in the late 1910s and now. Not only did the 1918 influenza virus primarily affect significantly younger cohorts, but the US economy’s industry and geographic distributions were notably different at the time compared to today’s. Consequently, caution is needed when using the 1918 influenza pandemic as a guideline for implementing and evaluating policy responses to COVID-19.
Article
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This article describes the need for and importance of remedial teaching during the post-Covid-19 pandemic. In the last two years of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, students were not allowed to engage in teaching and learning in the physical classroom. Hence, the entire educational process was conducted online. But the e-learning was favorable for the children who are economically sound. At the same time, the students who are economically weak and studying in government schools are very unfortunate. Most of them do not have ICT devices or proper follow-up to ensure the learning outcomes. Hence, the researcher intends to describe the need and importance of remedial teaching in post-Covi-19 classrooms in the Indian School Educational Contest.
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Положит ли COVID-19 конец тому возрождению, которое многие американские города переживают с 1980-х годов? В этой статье предпринят выборочный обзор обширной литературы о долгосрочных последствиях стихийных бедствий. На данный момент хорошо задокументирована долговременная устойчивость городов ко многим формам физических разрушений, включая бомбардировки, землетрясения и пожары. Уничтожение человеческого капитала может оставить более длительный отпечаток, но за последние тысячелетия города успешно пережили множество эпидемий. Напротив, экономические и политические потрясения, включая деиндустриализацию или потерю столичного статуса, могут нанести городу огромный ущерб. Эти факты говорят о том, что пандемия COVID-19 существенно изменит судьбы городов только в том случае, если будет сопровождаться серьезными экономическими сдвигами, такими как повсеместный переход на удаленную работу, или политическими переменами, которые заставят бизнес и богатых людей покидать городские районы. Сочетание возросших возможностей для переезда с ростом перераспределительной политики на местах, или ухудшением уровня благоустройства, или и тем и другим может воссоздать некоторые из ключевых атрибутов городского кризиса 1970-х годов.
Chapter
The coronavirus emerged in Wuhan, which is known as China's seventh largest city, at the end of December 2019. The Covid-19 virus was declared as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020, as a result of the increased number of cases and deaths. After the pandemic announcement, the Covid-19 outbreak had a great impact on social, political, economic and financial areas negatively. The world is struggling with the COVID-19 epidemic by taking various measures. In countries where the Covid-19 pandemic is prevalent, people are encouraged to work from home by making suggestions and prohibitions so that they do not go out unless necessary. Therefore, the need for energy sources has decreased and consumption has led to essential needs. Moreover, closing the international borders and taking heavy measures within the country helped to prevent the spread of the epidemic, but in the short term, it caused huge problems in both global and national trade. In the long run, it is expected to cause an excessive increase the unemployment level, collapse in the business world and recession in the global economy. In times of, great uncertainty in the economy and also stress in the markets, prices of financial products directly react in negative way to the news which is about the economy and market conditions. The Covid-19 pandemic brought along economic uncertainties and caused very sharp declines in the markets. In this context, this study, clarify the relationship between EMV-ID (Infectious Disease Equity Market Volatility Tracker), which is the Covid-19 index created from newspaper news, and stock market indices is investigated. SP 500 (USA), FTSE 100 (UK), DAX 30 (Germany), SSE 50 (China), JPX 400 (Japan), RTS 50 (Russia), BIST 100 (Turkey) indices are selected as stock market indices. Pearson correlation test shows that EMV-ID is negatively correlated with DAX 30, SSE 50 and JPX 400, and positively correlated with SP 500, FTSE 100, RTS 50 and BIST 100.
Chapter
Do pandemics affect the aggregate production of the economy? If this is the case, are the effects long-lived? To consider these two questions, we propose a framework to understand the effects of pandemics on short- and long-run aggregate output. We review the diverse economic consequences of pre-world pandemics (including the Black Death) and the Spanish Flu. Finally, we explain how the Spanish Flu can help us consider the potential unequal economic effects of Covid-19.KeywordAS-AD modelAggregate outputPersistencePandemicsCovid-19
Article
This paper analyzes the optimal management of a pandemic (stay-at-home and vaccination policies) in a dynamic model. The optimal lockdown policies respond to the spread of the virus with significant restrictions to employment, followed by partial loosening before the peak of the epidemic. Upon the availability of a vaccine, the optimal vaccination policy has an almost bang-bang property, despite the loss of immunity of the vaccinated: vaccinate at the highest possible rate, and then rapidly converge to the steady state. The model illustrates interesting trade-offs as it implies that lower hospital capacity requires flattening the infection curve and hence a more stringent lockdown, but lower vaccination possibilities (both the likelihood of a vaccine and the vaccination rate) push the optimal lockdown policy in the opposite direction, even before the arrival of vaccine. The model implies that the “dollarǥ value of a vaccine decreases rapidly as time passes with the reinfection rate being an important determinant of the monetary value. The value that society assigns to averting deaths is a major driver of the optimal policy. The sensitivity analysis shows that even for reasonable bounds of the economic and epidemiological parameters, the timing and the magnitude of the optimal policy varies substantially.
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I revisit the 1918–20 pandemic and ask whether it led to a reversal in the rise of trade and financial globalization that preceded it. Using annual data for 17 countries for the 1870–1928 period, a variety of tests and techniques are used to draw some robust conclusions. Overall, the pandemic a century ago interrupted, but did not put an end, to the first globalization of the twentieth century. However, two blocs consisting of combatant and non-combatant countries, experienced significantly different consequences. Globalization was sharply curtailed for the combatant countries while there were few, if any, consequences for globalization in the non-combatant group of countries. That said, there was considerable resilience especially in trade openness among several of the combatant economies. Perhaps changes in the make-up of economic blocs, post-pandemic, is a fallout from shocks of this kind. While there are lessons for the ongoing COVID pandemics differences between the 1920s and today also play a role.
Article
The global SARS‐CoV‐2/COVID‐19 Pandemic has disrupted public health, economies, and housing markets since early 2020. The shock has called forth a number of policy responses, such as moratoria on foreclosures and evictions, attempts to regulate rents and prices, and a range of subsidies on both supply and demand sides. This paper reviews the state of housing markets and discusses the expected efficacy of alternative policy measures taken or contemplated. Recognizing the provisional nature of any paper written during a large and durable ongoing shock, suggestions for additional research are provided.
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic led to dramatic economic disruptions, including government-imposed restrictions that temporarily shuttered millions of American businesses. We use a nationwide survey of thousands of small business owners to establish three main facts about business owners’ decisions to reopen at the end of the lockdowns. First, roughly 60 percent of firms planned to reopen within days of the end of legal restrictions, suggesting that the lockdowns were generally binding for businesses—although nearly 30 percent expected to delay their reopening by at least a month. Second, decisions to delay reopenings did not seem to be driven by concerns about employee or customer health; even businesses in high-proximity sectors with the highest health risks generally reported intentions to reopen as soon as regulations allowed. Third, pessimistic demand projections primarily explain delays among firms that could legally reopen. Owners expected demand to be one-third lower than before the crisis throughout the pandemic. Using experimentally induced shocks to perceived demand, we find that a 10 percent decline in expected demand results in a 1.5 percentage point (8 percent) increase in the likelihood that firms expected to remain closed for at least one month after being legally able to open. We use follow-up surveys to cross-validate expectations with realized outcomes. Overall, our results suggest that governments set more stringent guidelines for reopening than what many businesses would have selected, suggesting that governments may have internalized costs of contagion that businesses did not.
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Economic historians have debated the importance of energy for economic development. Energy economists would argue that energy systems need to be adaptable in the face of shocks. In this light, we consider the case of Denmark, a country which was almost entirely dependent on imports of coal, and where a long coastline made imports, largely from the UK, cheap and available. Towards the end of the First World War, however, and well into the 1920s, coal imports were cut off or difficult to obtain. We exploit detailed microlevel data from butter factories, covering the period 1900-28. We find that firms were able to adapt and make use of alternative fuels, notably peat, although its availability varied across the country. Employing a difference-indifferences approach, we find significant productivity advantages for creameries closer to available peat fields in the wake of the coal shortage. JEL Codes: N54, O13, Q40
Article
Will COVID-19 end the urban renaissance that many cities have experienced since the 1980s? This essay selectively reviews the copious literature that now exists on the long-term impact of natural disasters. At this point, the long-run resilience of cities to many forms of physical destruction, including bombing, earthquakes and fires, has been well-documented. The destruction of human capital may leave a longer imprint, but cities have persisted through many plagues over the past millennia. By contrast, economic and political shocks, including deindustrialisation or the loss of capital city status, can enormously harm an urban area. These facts suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic will only significantly alter urban fortunes if it is accompanied by a major economic shift, such as widespread adoption of remote work, or political shifts that could lead businesses and the wealthy to leave urban areas. The combination of an increased ability to relocate with increased local redistribution or deterioration of local amenity levels, or both, could recreate some of the key attributes of the urban crisis of the 1970s.
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In 2020, The COVID-19 crisis has put great pressure on the economy worldwide. Only time can tell whether the COVID-19 crisis will have permanent effects on corporate and household behaviour and how it will affect society at large. This article examines historical experiences of how households managed the financial consequences of rising mortality during the 1918 influenza pandemic. We find that the previous pandemic led to an immediate and major increase in primarily small-sum industrial life insurance policies designed for blue-collar workers. The increase in new policies did not, however, have a lasting effect. By the time the pandemic had faded, the number of policies had dropped to below pre-pandemic conditions. This historical experience underlines the fact that there are limits to the extent to which even a major shock, such as a pandemic, can lead to behavioural change among households as currently being predicted in relation to COVID-19.
Article
We study the demographic and economic correlates of the 1918 influenza or “Spanish flu” that killed an estimated 6% of South Africa's population. While the pandemic has received some attention in South African historiography and from social scientists in other contexts, little is known about its long‐term impact on the country. Bringing together data from a range of new sources, including population and agricultural censuses, household surveys, and the voters’ rolls, we provide analyses that show, first, the factors that (do and do not) predict flu mortality across South Africa's magisterial districts, and, second, suggest some important consequences of the flu. Our results reveal a large but short‐lived demographic shock, and detectable, if small scale, long‐term economic consequences.
Article
In this paper we seek to make headway on the question of what recovery from Covid-19 recession may look like, focusing on the duration of the recovery – that is, how long it will take to re-attain the levels of output and employment reached at the prior business cycle peak. We start by categorizing all post-1960 recessions in advanced countries and emerging markets into supply-shock, demand-shock and both-shock induced recessions. We measure recovery duration as the number of years required to re-attain pre-recession levels of output or employment. We then rely on the earlier literature on business cycle dynamics to identify candidate variables that can help to account for variations in recovery duration following different kinds of shocks. By asking which of these variables are operative in the Covid-19 recession, we can then draw inferences about the duration of the recovery under different scenarios. A number of our statistical results point in the direction of lengthy recoveries.
Article
The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, a new and novel risk factor, leads to the stock price crash due to the investors’ rapid and synchronous sell-off. However, within a short period, the quality sectors start recovering from the bottom. A stock price model has been developed to capture the price dynamics during shock and recovery phases of such crisis. The main variable and parameter of the model are the net fund flow (Ψt) due to institutional investors, and financial antifragility (ϕ) of a company, respectively. We assume that during the crash, the stock price fall is independent of the ϕ. We study the effects of shock length (TS) and ϕ on the stock price during the crisis period using the Ψt obtained from both the synthetic fund flow data and real fund flow data. We observed that the possibility of recovery of stock with ϕ>0, termed as quality stock, decreases with an increase in TS beyond a specific period. A quality stock with higher ϕ shows V-shape recovery and outperform others. The TS and recovery period of quality stock are almost equal in the Indian market. Financially stressed stocks, i.e., the stocks with ϕ<0, show L-shape recovery during the pandemic. The stock data and model analysis show that the investors, in the uncertainty like COVID-19, invest in the quality stocks to restructure their portfolio to reduce the risk. The study may help the investors to make the right investment decision during a crisis.
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This paper examines relative stock market performance following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic for a sample of 80 stock markets. Weekly data on coronavirus cases and deaths are employed alongside Oxford indices on each nation's stringency and government support intensity. The results are broken down both by month and by geographical region. The full sample results show that increased coronavirus cases exert the expected overall effect of worsening relative stock market performance, but with little consistent impact of rising deaths. There is some evidence of significantly negative stock market effects arising from lockdowns as reflected in the Oxford stringency index. There are also positive reactions to government support in March and December in the overall sample-combined with some additional pervasive effects seen in mid-2020 in Latin America.
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The aim of the paper is to explore the economic outcomeс of the Spanish flu pandemic and to systemise the insights in such a way that they can be used for shedding light on the economic outcomes of COVID-19 pandemic. It was demonstrated that in the short run the impact of the Spanish flu was a significant one-off drop of the output due to the significant decrease in labour supply augmented by the decrease in aggregate demand. In the long run the Spanish flu decreased the level of available human capital in two ways: directly due to the excess mortality, and indirectly due to the intergenerational transfer of lower human capital and the health of mothers during pregnancy. The decrease in human capital generated adverse consequences on economic growth and these consequences increase with technological progress, which demands a higher level of human capital.
Article
Which are the effects of pandemics on the returns to factors of production? Are these effects persistent over time? These questions have received renewed interest after the out-burst of deaths caused by Covid-19. The Spanish Flu is the closest pandemic to Covid-19. In this paper, we analyze the impact of the Spanish Flu on the returns to labor and capital in Spain. Spain is an ideal country to perform this exercise. First, the “excess death rate” was one of the largest in Western Europe and it varied substantially across regions. Second, Spain was transitioning towards industrialization, with regions in different stages of development. Third, Spain was developed enough to have reliable data. We identify the effect of the Spanish Flu by exploiting within-country variation in “excess death rate”. Our main result is that the effect of the Spanish Flu on daily real wages was large, negative, and broadly short-lived. The effects are heterogeneous across occupations and regions. The negative effects are exacerbated in (i) occupations producing non-essential goods like shoemakers and (ii) more urbanized provinces. Quantitatively, relative to pre-1918, the decline for the average region ranges from null to around 30 percent. In addition, we fail to find significant negative effects of the flu on returns to capital. Whereas the results for dividends are imprecisely estimated (we cannot reject a null effect), the effect on real estate prices (houses and land), driven by the post-1918 recovery, is positive. Experts on inequality have argued that pandemics have equalizing effects especially in a Malthusian setting, due to real wage increases. Our findings suggest that, at least, for a developing economy like Spain in the early 20th century, this result does not apply. Indeed, we document that the flu pandemic was conducive to a (short-run) reduction in real wages. In addition, we interpret our heterogeneous results as suggestive evidence that pandemics represent a demand shock.
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What are the economic impacts of pandemics and the policy responses to control them? Economic studies of the 1918 influenza pandemic are limited by the sparse data of that era. This paper examines these questions using the richer data collected by individual U.S. states. Like extant studies that rely on Federal data sources, we find an increase in employment between the Census years of 1914 and 1919 in cities with tighter social distancing. However, our annual state data reveal that this increase occurred prior to the pandemic in 1918, suggesting that a confounding factor generates the correlation between tighter social distancing and employment. Once we control for the economic effects of World War One, we do not find robust evidence of a long run economic impact from the flu or social distancing in the Federal data.
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We study the impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on U.S. stock prices. We use the death rate to control for the impact of the global pandemic and war news reported in the New York Times to capture the positive effects of the end of World War I on stock prices. Using a new weekly hand collected NYSE stock price index, we show that there is a -.73 correlation between the aggregate stock market and the death rate. Furthermore, vector autoregressions demonstrate that the death rate can explain up to 24 percent of the forecast error variance in the aggregate stock index from September 1918 until the end of the pandemic in March 1920. We also find that the flu had a significant, but varied impact on nine NYSE sectors. The empirical analysis indicates that pandemics can matter big time for stock prices.
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We provide a comprehensive review of the literature on the economic impact of pandemics and identify the transmission channels at play. The primary channel comes from the supply side, as pandemics reduce both the quantity and the quality of labour. They can also lead to a destruction of capital, as businesses close and investment is curtailed. On the demand side, consumption is particularly vulnerable to the impact of both reduced income and declining consumer confidence. A third channel works through the financial system. While the natural rate of interest might be expected to fall, leading to a period of low interest rates, financial institutions are likely to come under stress. Rising uncertainty, along with an increase in the number of borrowers with debt servicing difficulties, may dampen investment and generate a liquidity squeeze, exacerbating the demand effects of the pandemic. All three channels work to reduce current and potential output. Spillovers and asymmetries can explain the varying impact of the pandemic across countries, but it seems that open economies, embedded in global value chains, are especially vulnerable. Nonetheless, the literature provides ample evidence on how to limit the impact of pandemics using monetary and fiscal policy combined with measures to ease liquidity constraints on the financial sector. In the context of the EU, the coordination and mutualisation of the policy response to the pandemic can prove to be very beneficial.
Conference Paper
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The aim of this research is to examine the effect of image and video-based review presentation formats for online product reviews made by customers on commercial websites on purchase intention. In this direction, two online questionnaires were prepared for image and video based review presentation formats. Data were obtained from 321 participants in total using the snowball sampling method through two online questionnaires. 165 data for the online questionnaire prepared for the image-based review presentation format and 156 data for the online questionnaire prepared for the video-based review presentation format were entered into SPSS. The analysis of the entered data was made with the SPSS 25 package program. According to the results of the study, image and video-based review presentation format have a significant positive effect on purchase intention, perceived review helpfulness and perceived product understanding. At the same time, perceived review helpfulness and positive product understanding according to both image and video-based review presentation format have a significant positive effect on purchase intention. However, the video-based review presentation format has more significant positive effects on purchasing intention, perceived review helpfulness and perceived product understanding than image-based review presentation format. Also, unlike the image-based, according to the video-based review presentation format, the perceived review helpfulness and positive perceived product understanding have more significant positive effects on purchase intention. The research successfully explains the relationship between review presentation formats and online purchase intention.
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Deaths during the 1918-19 influenza pandemic have been attributed to a hypervirulent influenza strain. Hence, preparations for the next pandemic focus almost exclusively on vaccine prevention and antiviral treatment for infections with a novel influenza strain. However, we hypothesize that infections with the pandemic strain generally caused self-limited (rarely fatal) illnesses that enabled colonizing strains of bacteria to produce highly lethal pneumonias. This sequential-infection hypothesis is consistent with characteristics of the 1918-19 pandemic, contemporaneous expert opinion, and current knowledge regarding the pathophysiologic effects of influenza viruses and their interactions with respiratory bacteria. This hypothesis suggests opportunities for prevention and treatment during the next pandemic (e.g., with bacterial vaccines and antimicrobial drugs), particularly if a pandemic strain-specific vaccine is unavailable or inaccessible to isolated, crowded, or medically underserved populations.
Article
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The 1918 “Spanish flu” was the fastest spreading and most deadly influenza pandemic in recorded history. Hypotheses of its origin have been based on a limited collection of case and outbreak reports from before its recognized European emergence in the summer of 1918. These anecdotal accounts, however, remain insufficient for determining the early diffusion and impact of the pandemic virus. Using routinely collected monthly age-stratified mortality data, we show that an unmistakable shift in the age distribution of epidemic deaths occurred during the 1917/1918 influenza season in New York City. The timing, magnitude, and age distribution of this mortality shift provide strong evidence that an early wave of the pandemic virus was present in New York City during February-April 1918. • age-specific mortality • epidemic • herald wave • Spanish flu
Article
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Three worldwide (pandemic) outbreaks of influenza occurred in the 20th century: in 1918, 1957, and 1968. The latter 2 were in the era of modern virology and most thoroughly characterized. All 3 have been informally identified by their presumed sites of origin as Spanish, Asian, and Hong Kong influenza, respectively. They are now known to represent 3 different antigenic subtypes of influenza A virus: H1N1, H2N2, and H3N2, respectively. Not classified as true pandemics are 3 notable epidemics: a pseudopandemic in 1947 with low death rates, an epidemic in 1977 that was a pandemic in children, and an abortive epidemic of swine influenza in 1976 that was feared to have pandemic potential. Major influenza epidemics show no predictable periodicity or pattern, and all differ from one another. Evidence suggests that true pandemics with changes in hemagglutinin subtypes arise from genetic reassortment with animal influenza A viruses.
Article
This article reviews the global health and economic consequences of the 1918 influenza pandemic, with a particular focus on topics that have seen a renewed interest because of COVID-19. We begin by providing an overview of key contextual and epidemiological details as well as the data that are available to researchers. We then examine the effects on mortality, fertility, and the economy in the short and medium run. The role of non-pharmaceutical interventions in shaping those outcomes is discussed throughout. We then examine longer-lasting health consequences and their impact on human capital accumulation and socioeconomic status. Throughout the paper we highlight important areas for future work. (JEL E24, E32, I12, I15, J13, J24, N30)
Article
We analyze the effects of ownership of liberty bonds on election outcomes in the 1920s. We find that counties with higher liberty bond ownership rates turned against the Democratic Party in the presidential elections of 1920 and 1924. This was a reaction to the depreciation of the bonds prior to the 1920 election (when the Democrats held the presidency) and the appreciation of the bonds in the early 1920s (under a Republican president), as the Federal Reserve raised and then subsequently lowered interest rates. Our analysis suggests that the liberty bond campaigns had unintended political consequences.
Article
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic killed millions worldwide and hundreds of thousands in the United States. This article studies the impact of air pollution on pandemic mortality. The analysis combines a panel dataset on infant and all-age mortality with a novel measure of air pollution based on the burning of coal in a large sample of U.S. cities. We estimate that air pollution contributed significantly to pandemic mortality. Cities that used more coal experienced tens of thousands of excess deaths in 1918 relative to cities that used less coal with similar pre-pandemic socioeconomic conditions and baseline health. Factors related to poverty, public health, and the timing of onset also affected pandemic mortality. The findings support recent medical evidence on the link between air pollution and influenza infection, and suggest that poor air quality was an important cause of mortality during the pandemic.
Article
The influenza pandemic of 1918–1919 dramatically altered biomedical knowledge of the disease. At its onset, the foundation of scientific knowledge was information collected during the previous major pandemic of 1889–1890. The work of Otto Leichtenstern, first published in 1896, described the major epidemiological and pathological features of pandemic influenza and was cited extensively over the next two decades. Richard Pfeiffer announced in 1892 and 1893 that he had discovered influenza's cause. Pfeiffers bacillus ( Bacillus influenzae) was a major focus of attention and some controversy between 1892 and 1920. The role this organism or these organisms played in influenza dominated medical discussion during the great pandemic. Many vaccines were developed and used during the 1918–1919 pandemic. The medical literature was full of contradictory claims of their success; there was apparently no consensus on how to judge the reported results of these vaccine trials. The result of the vaccine controversy was both a further waning of confidence in Pfeiffer's bacillus as the agent of influenza and the emergence of an early set of criteria for valid vaccine trials.
Article
The article derives a new monthly index of industrial production for the United States for 1884 to 1940. This index improves upon existing measures of industrial production by excluding indirect proxies for industrial activity, using only component series that are consistent over time, and not making ad hoc adjustments to the data. Analysis of the new index shows that it has more within-year volatility than conventional indexes, has relatively unimportant seasonal fluctuations, and has cyclical turning points that are grossly similar to but subtly different from existing series.
Article
This paper develops new methodology for the estimation of prewar gross national product (GNP), taps previously unused data sources, an d develops new estimates for the periods 1869-1908 and 1869-1928. Primary among the new data sources are direct measures of output in the transportation, communications, and construction sectors, and estimates of the consumer price index. New measures of real GNP, nominal GNP, and the GNP deflator are developed. The new estimates of real GNP are as volatile, on average, over the business cycle as the traditional Kuznets-Kendrick series, but dampen the amplitude of som e cycles while raising the amplitude of others. The new estimates of th e GNP deflator are distinctly less volatile than the traditional series and, in fact, no more volatile than those in the postwar period. Copyright 1989 by University of Chicago Press.
Article
The 1918 influenza pandemic killed 20-40 million people worldwide, and is seen as a worst-case scenario for pandemic planning. Like other pandemic influenza strains, the 1918 A/H1N1 strain spread extremely rapidly. A measure of transmissibility and of the stringency of control measures required to stop an epidemic is the reproductive number, which is the number of secondary cases produced by each primary case. Here we obtained an estimate of the reproductive number for 1918 influenza by fitting a deterministic SEIR (susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered) model to pneumonia and influenza death epidemic curves from 45 US cities: the median value is less than three. The estimated proportion of the population with A/H1N1 immunity before September 1918 implies a median basic reproductive number of less than four. These results strongly suggest that the reproductive number for 1918 pandemic influenza is not large relative to many other infectious diseases. In theory, a similar novel influenza subtype could be controlled. But because influenza is frequently transmitted before a specific diagnosis is possible and there is a dearth of global antiviral and vaccine stores, aggressive transmission reducing measures will probably be required.
Article
Nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) intended to reduce infectious contacts between persons form an integral part of plans to mitigate the impact of the next influenza pandemic. Although the potential benefits of NPIs are supported by mathematical models, the historical evidence for the impact of such interventions in past pandemics has not been systematically examined. We obtained data on the timing of 19 classes of NPI in 17 U.S. cities during the 1918 pandemic and tested the hypothesis that early implementation of multiple interventions was associated with reduced disease transmission. Consistent with this hypothesis, cities in which multiple interventions were implemented at an early phase of the epidemic had peak death rates ≈50% lower than those that did not and had less-steep epidemic curves. Cities in which multiple interventions were implemented at an early phase of the epidemic also showed a trend toward lower cumulative excess mortality, but the difference was smaller (≈20%) and less statistically significant than that for peak death rates. This finding was not unexpected, given that few cities maintained NPIs longer than 6 weeks in 1918. Early implementation of certain interventions, including closure of schools, churches, and theaters, was associated with lower peak death rates, but no single intervention showed an association with improved aggregate outcomes for the 1918 phase of the pandemic. These findings support the hypothesis that rapid implementation of multiple NPIs can significantly reduce influenza transmission, but that viral spread will be renewed upon relaxation of such measures. • mitigation • nonpharmaceutical interventions • closures
Article
During the 1918 influenza pandemic, the U.S., unlike Europe, put considerable effort into public health interventions. There was also more geographic variation in the autumn wave of the pandemic in the U.S. compared with Europe, with some cities seeing only a single large peak in mortality and others seeing double-peaked epidemics. Here we examine whether differences in the public health measures adopted by different cities can explain the variation in epidemic patterns and overall mortality observed. We show that city-specific per-capita excess mortality in 1918 was significantly correlated with 1917 per-capita mortality, indicating some intrinsic variation in overall mortality, perhaps related to sociodemographic factors. In the subset of 23 cities for which we had partial data on the timing of interventions, an even stronger correlation was found between excess mortality and how early in the epidemic interventions were introduced. We then fitted an epidemic model to weekly mortality in 16 cities with nearly complete intervention-timing data and estimated the impact of interventions. The model reproduced the observed epidemic patterns well. In line with theoretical arguments, we found the time-limited interventions used reduced total mortality only moderately (perhaps 10–30%), and that the impact was often very limited because of interventions being introduced too late and lifted too early. San Francisco, St. Louis, Milwaukee, and Kansas City had the most effective interventions, reducing transmission rates by up to 30–50%. Our analysis also suggests that individuals reactively reduced their contact rates in response to high levels of mortality during the pandemic. • epidemic model • public health interventions
Article
A critical question in pandemic influenza planning is the role nonpharmaceutical interventions might play in delaying the temporal effects of a pandemic, reducing the overall and peak attack rate, and reducing the number of cumulative deaths. Such measures could potentially provide valuable time for pandemic-strain vaccine and antiviral medication production and distribution. Optimally, appropriate implementation of nonpharmaceutical interventions would decrease the burden on health care services and critical infrastructure. To examine the implementation of nonpharmaceutical interventions for epidemic mitigation in 43 cities in the continental United States from September 8, 1918, through February 22, 1919, and to determine whether city-to-city variation in mortality was associated with the timing, duration, and combination of nonpharmaceutical interventions; altered population susceptibility associated with prior pandemic waves; age and sex distribution; and population size and density. Historical archival research, and statistical and epidemiological analyses. Nonpharmaceutical interventions were grouped into 3 major categories: school closure; cancellation of public gatherings; and isolation and quarantine. Weekly excess death rate (EDR); time from the activation of nonpharmaceutical interventions to the first peak EDR; the first peak weekly EDR; and cumulative EDR during the entire 24-week study period. There were 115,340 excess pneumonia and influenza deaths (EDR, 500/100,000 population) in the 43 cities during the 24 weeks analyzed. Every city adopted at least 1 of the 3 major categories of nonpharmaceutical interventions. School closure and public gathering bans activated concurrently represented the most common combination implemented in 34 cities (79%); this combination had a median duration of 4 weeks (range, 1-10 weeks) and was significantly associated with reductions in weekly EDR. The cities that implemented nonpharmaceutical interventions earlier had greater delays in reaching peak mortality (Spearman r = -0.74, P < .001), lower peak mortality rates (Spearman r = 0.31, P = .02), and lower total mortality (Spearman r = 0.37, P = .008). There was a statistically significant association between increased duration of nonpharmaceutical interventions and a reduced total mortality burden (Spearman r = -0.39, P = .005). These findings demonstrate a strong association between early, sustained, and layered application of nonpharmaceutical interventions and mitigating the consequences of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in the United States. In planning for future severe influenza pandemics, nonpharmaceutical interventions should be considered for inclusion as companion measures to developing effective vaccines and medications for prophylaxis and treatment.
Article
A working definition, first formulated in the 1920's by Mitchell and revised in the 1940's, has been in use at the National Bureau for over fifty years and is still employed to identify and date business cycles. The NBER historical chronologies for England, France, and Germany as well as the United States have been intensively in economic research and are widely accepted. The U.S. chronology, which is being updated as promptly as the data allow, also have the important practical function of aiding the analysis of current business conditions and forecasting near-term cyclical developments. This paper discusses the main aspects of the NBER concept of business cycles; the early views and developments bearing on the construction of the chronologies; the problems and procedures involved; the characteristics and dependability of the historical reference dates; and the National Bureau's work in this field since World War II. Some recent uses of the U.S. dates to measure the duration, amplitudes, and diffusion of business expansions and contractions are illustrated. Finally, we show and discuss chronologies of growth cycles,' i.e., trend-adjusted business cycles, for 13 countries in the post-World War II period.
Article
This paper examines the official Commerce Department estimates of gross national product for 1909–1928 and suggests that they are far inferior to the less commonly used Kendrick GNP estimates. The paper then derives a revised version of the Kendrick series that alters significantly the representation of annual movements in GNP before 1919. This endorsement of a revised Kendrick GNP series in place of the official Commerce Department estimates before 1929 suggests that aggregate demand movements had much less effect on real output during World War I and the Depression of 1921 than is commonly believed.
  • Robert J Barro
  • Robert Barro
  • Andrew Atkeson
Mortality from Influenza and Pneumonia in 50 Large Cities of the United States, 1910-1929
  • Selwyn D Collins
  • Christian Dahl
The Contagious Diseases and the Child Conservation Movement
  • Edwin H Place
An Index of the Dollar Volume of Retail Trade, 1914-1927
  • Morris A Copeland
  • Martin Eichenbaum
  • Markel
A Report on an Epidemic of Influenza in the City of Chicago in the Fall of 1918
  • John D Robertson
The Statistical Control of Business Activities
  • M C Rorty