Boberg-Fazlic, Nina, Lampe, Markus, Pedersen, Maja Uhre, Sharp, Paul. 2020. Pandemics and Protectionism: Evidence from the “Spanish” flu. CAGE Working Paper 479/2020.
BibTeX
Abstract
The impact of COVID-19 on recent tendencies towards international isolationism has been much speculated on but remains to be seen. We suggest that valuable evidence can be gleaned from the “Spanish” flu of 1918-20. It is well-known that the world fell into a protectionist spiral following the First World War, but scholars have almost exclusively ignored the impact of the pandemic. We employ a difference-in-differences strategy on data for Europe and find that excess deaths had a significant impact on trade policy, independent of the war. A one standard deviation increase in excess deaths during the outbreak implied 0.022 percentage points higher tariffs subsequently, corresponding to an increase of one third of a standard deviation in tariffs. Health policy should aim to avoid the experience of the interwar period and consider the international macroeconomic impact of measures (not) taken.
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Status of publication | Published |
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Affiliation | WU |
Type of publication | Working/discussion paper, preprint |
Language | English |
Title | Pandemics and Protectionism: Evidence from the “Spanish” flu |
Title of whole publication | CAGE Working Paper 479/2020 |
Year | 2020 |
URL | https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp479.2020.pdf |
JEL | F13, I19, N74 |
Associations
- People
- Lampe, Markus (Details)
- External
- Boberg-Fazlic, Nina (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
- Pedersen, Maja Uhre (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
- Sharp, Paul (University of Southern Denmark, Denmark)
- Organization
- Institute for Economic and Social History IN (Details)
- Research areas (ÖSTAT Classification 'Statistik Austria')
- 5340 Economic history (Details)
- 6521 Economic history (Details)