Boberg-Fazlic, Nina, Lampe, Markus, Pedersen, Maja Uhre, Sharp, Paul. 2020. Pandemics and Protectionism: Evidence from the “Spanish” flu. CAGE Working Paper 479/2020.

RIS

@MISC{Boberg-Fazlic2020,
title = {Pandemics and Protectionism: Evidence from the “Spanish” flu},
author = {Nina Boberg-Fazlic and Markus Lampe and Maja Uhre Pedersen and Paul Sharp},
year = {2020},
url = {https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp479.2020.pdf},
language = {EN},
series = {CAGE Working Paper 479/2020},
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.},
}