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CHRISTOPH KOENIG

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Bristol University

The Political Effects of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic in Germany


Zoom link: https://zoom.us/j/99933233549


Abstract
Do public health crises affect countries' political landscapes? When the 1918 influenza pandemic broke out in Germany, it was on the verge of losing WW1. To maintain order, the government largely suppressed public information on the disease. Using a constituency-level panel of election results from 1893 to 1933, we estimate the political effect of pandemic severity in a Differences-in-Differences framework. Local pandemic severity is calculated from excess mortality in 1918 for all 362 constituencies of Interwar Germany. We provide evidence that 1918 excess mortality reflects influenza-related deaths rather than other diseases or WW1 fatalities using detailed cause-of-death data for more than 100 German cities. Baseline results show that 1918 excess mortality is associated with a lasting shift of votes toward leftwing parties. We explore several mechanisms that may explain this finding.   


Bio
Christoph Koenig is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Economics at the University of Bristol and Research Associate at CAGE Warwick. His research interests lie in applied microeconomics with a particular focus on political economy and the economic history of Central and Eastern Europe.