Pub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-03-14DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101669
Michael J. Andrews , Alexa Smith
We quantify the extent to which land grant colleges were located in counties that grow different crops than the rest of their states, which we call agricultural unrepresentativeness. We find that land grant colleges located in agriculturally unrepresentative counties tended to produce research focusing on more unrepresentative crops. We find similar results when exploiting historical college site selection natural experiments to identify exogenous variation in the agricultural unrepresentativeness of the college county. Moreover, we find that colleges in agriculturally unrepresentative locations created more geographically limited productivity spillovers.
{"title":"Do local conditions determine the direction of science? Evidence from U.S. land grant colleges","authors":"Michael J. Andrews , Alexa Smith","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101669","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101669","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We quantify the extent to which land grant colleges were located in counties that grow different crops than the rest of their states, which we call agricultural unrepresentativeness. We find that land grant colleges located in agriculturally unrepresentative counties tended to produce research focusing on more unrepresentative crops. We find similar results when exploiting historical college site selection natural experiments to identify exogenous variation in the agricultural unrepresentativeness of the college county. Moreover, we find that colleges in agriculturally unrepresentative locations created more geographically limited productivity spillovers.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101669"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143828194","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-06-07DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101700
William J. Collins , Andreas Ferrara , Price V. Fishback
World War II was one of the greatest crises in American history. The United States devoted an enormous amount of resources to fight the war with long range consequences for the economy. This is the introduction to a special issue on the impact of the U.S. involvement in World War II. It provides context for the papers in the issue. The papers address the experiences of veterans of various races and ethnicities later in life; the impact of the war on the longevity of black veterans and citizens; war programs devoted to providing care and education to young children; war bonds and their impact on the financial system; the influence of pipeline projects on development; the effect of wage regulations on the income distribution, and the effect of war mobilization on productivity gains at the national and regional levels.
{"title":"Introduction to special issue of explorations in economic history on the impacts of World War II on the U.S. economy","authors":"William J. Collins , Andreas Ferrara , Price V. Fishback","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101700","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101700","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>World War II was one of the greatest crises in American history. The United States devoted an enormous amount of resources to fight the war with long range consequences for the economy. This is the introduction to a special issue on the impact of the U.S. involvement in World War II. It provides context for the papers in the issue. The papers address the experiences of veterans of various races and ethnicities later in life; the impact of the war on the longevity of black veterans and citizens; war programs devoted to providing care and education to young children; war bonds and their impact on the financial system; the influence of pipeline projects on development; the effect of wage regulations on the income distribution, and the effect of war mobilization on productivity gains at the national and regional levels.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101700"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144471357","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-04-15DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101684
Claudia Goldin , Claudia Olivetti , Joseph Ferrie
The Lanham Act was a federal infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 1940 and eventually used to fund programs for the preschool and school-aged children of working women during WWII. It remains, to this day, the only example in US history of an (almost) universal, largely federally supported childcare program. We explore its role in enabling and increasing the labor supply of mothers during WWII using information on the program, war contracts, and employment at the city level. Use of Lanham Act funds for a wartime childcare program was initially controversial. However, the program was eventually well funded per child in average daily attendance and provided generally high-quality care. But it was late to start, limited in scope, and incapable of greatly increasing women’s employment in the aggregate. Childcare facilities were funded more in places that already had higher participation rates of mothers and where the wartime need was the greatest. The impact on the children served is still to be determined.
{"title":"Mobilizing the manpower of mothers: Childcare under the Lanham Act during WWII","authors":"Claudia Goldin , Claudia Olivetti , Joseph Ferrie","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101684","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101684","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The Lanham Act was a federal infrastructure bill passed by Congress in 1940 and eventually used to fund programs for the preschool and school-aged children of working women during WWII. It remains, to this day, the only example in US history of an (almost) universal, largely federally supported childcare program. We explore its role in enabling and increasing the labor supply of mothers during WWII using information on the program, war contracts, and employment at the city level. Use of Lanham Act funds for a wartime childcare program was initially controversial. However, the program was eventually well funded per child in average daily attendance and provided generally high-quality care. But it was late to start, limited in scope, and incapable of greatly increasing women’s employment in the aggregate. Childcare facilities were funded more in places that already had higher participation rates of mothers and where the wartime need was the greatest. The impact on the children served is still to be determined.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101684"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144169790","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-07-01Epub Date: 2025-06-15DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101701
Jason Fletcher , Hamid Noghanibehambari
Several research strands document the life-cycle impacts of lead exposure during early life. Yet little is known about the long-run effects of lead exposure during early life on old-age mortality outcomes. In this study, we employ Social Security Administration death records linked to the full-count 1940 census and document that birth-city lead status negatively affects later life old age longevity. These impacts are larger for cities with acidic water and older pipeline systems that allow higher lead levels to leach into drinking water. Further, we show that the impacts are almost exclusively concentrated on the lead status of the birth-city and not the city of residence later in life. An instrumental variable strategy suggests reductions in longevity associated with birth-city lead status of about 9.6 months. We also find education, socioeconomic standing, and income reductions during early adulthood as candidate mechanisms. Finally, we use WWII enlistment data and observe reductions in measures of cognitive ability among lead-exposed individuals.
{"title":"Early-life lead exposure and male longevity: Evidence from historical municipal water systems","authors":"Jason Fletcher , Hamid Noghanibehambari","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101701","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101701","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Several research strands document the life-cycle impacts of lead exposure during early life. Yet little is known about the long-run effects of lead exposure during early life on old-age mortality outcomes. In this study, we employ Social Security Administration death records linked to the full-count 1940 census and document that birth-city lead status negatively affects later life old age longevity. These impacts are larger for cities with acidic water and older pipeline systems that allow higher lead levels to leach into drinking water. Further, we show that the impacts are almost exclusively concentrated on the lead status of the birth-city and not the city of residence later in life. An instrumental variable strategy suggests reductions in longevity associated with birth-city lead status of about 9.6 months. We also find education, socioeconomic standing, and income reductions during early adulthood as candidate mechanisms. Finally, we use WWII enlistment data and observe reductions in measures of cognitive ability among lead-exposed individuals.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"97 ","pages":"Article 101701"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144322527","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2025-01-05DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101653
Martin Klesment, Kersti Lust
In the pre-industrial era, changing economic conditions had a strong influence on demographic processes. Using pre-industrial rural Estonia as an example, the article studies fertility response to short-term economic stress in a manorial society in eastern Europe. It considers whether the fertility response to rye price fluctuations was deliberate and whether it was socially differentiated. It appears that an increase in the price of rye resulted in the drop of conceptions within the next year and the magnitude of the impact on fertility was roughly similar to that in several other European settings in the 19th century. As long as the manorial system was maintained, farmers were more sensitive to price hikes than the landless, but with the decline of the mutual economic dependence between manors and farms, the landless laborers became more vulnerable to price increases. Our analysis of the timing of the fertility response reveals no deliberate postponement of conceptions immediately before or after the low harvests or price increases. Instead, conceptions dropped only in the spring and summer season of the next year, indicating a non-deliberate and spontaneous response.
{"title":"The fertility response to price changes in a manorial society: The case of rural Estonia, 1834–1884","authors":"Martin Klesment, Kersti Lust","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101653","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101653","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In the pre-industrial era, changing economic conditions had a strong influence on demographic processes. Using pre-industrial rural Estonia as an example, the article studies fertility response to short-term economic stress in a manorial society in eastern Europe. It considers whether the fertility response to rye price fluctuations was deliberate and whether it was socially differentiated. It appears that an increase in the price of rye resulted in the drop of conceptions within the next year and the magnitude of the impact on fertility was roughly similar to that in several other European settings in the 19th century. As long as the manorial system was maintained, farmers were more sensitive to price hikes than the landless, but with the decline of the mutual economic dependence between manors and farms, the landless laborers became more vulnerable to price increases. Our analysis of the timing of the fertility response reveals no deliberate postponement of conceptions immediately before or after the low harvests or price increases. Instead, conceptions dropped only in the spring and summer season of the next year, indicating a non-deliberate and spontaneous response.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101653"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142975129","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-12-13DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101649
William J. Collins , Ariell Zimran
We examine new datasets of records linked between the 1940 and 1950 US censuses to characterize selection into military service during World War II and to analyze differences in veterans’ post-war educational and labor market outcomes relative to nonveterans. Motivated by potentially disparate selection into and effects of service, we pay particular attention to groups distinguished by age, pre-war educational attainment, race, and nativity. We find that veterans were positively selected on pre-war educational attainment, but negatively or neutrally selected in terms of own or fathers’ pre-war labor market characteristics. Younger veterans fared better in terms of education and labor market outcomes in 1950 than nonveterans who were observationally similar in 1940. Older veterans exhibited relative gains in education compared to observationally similar nonveterans, but not in labor market outcomes. Black veterans’ relative gains in education were large, but black veterans not in school were less likely to be employed than observationally similar nonveterans in 1950. All groups of veterans were more likely to be government employees after the war and were under-represented in self employment.
{"title":"World War II service and the GI Bill: New evidence on selection and veterans’ outcomes from linked census records","authors":"William J. Collins , Ariell Zimran","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101649","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101649","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>We examine new datasets of records linked between the 1940 and 1950 US censuses to characterize selection into military service during World War II and to analyze differences in veterans’ post-war educational and labor market outcomes relative to nonveterans. Motivated by potentially disparate selection into and effects of service, we pay particular attention to groups distinguished by age, pre-war educational attainment, race, and nativity. We find that veterans were positively selected on pre-war educational attainment, but negatively or neutrally selected in terms of own or fathers’ pre-war labor market characteristics. Younger veterans fared better in terms of education and labor market outcomes in 1950 than nonveterans who were observationally similar in 1940. Older veterans exhibited relative gains in education compared to observationally similar nonveterans, but not in labor market outcomes. Black veterans’ relative gains in education were large, but black veterans not in school were less likely to be employed than observationally similar nonveterans in 1950. All groups of veterans were more likely to be government employees after the war and were under-represented in self employment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101649"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142990489","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-12-15DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101650
Kai P. Willführ , Josep Sottile Perez
In February 1825, the dikes broke after a spring tide in the Krummhörn region in East Frisia, Germany, causing a severe disaster. Although the flood did not claim many victims, substantial damage was done to the farmland, and the economic crisis that followed permanently changed the social structure in the Krummhörn. We study family reconstitutions of the region linked to information about socioeconomic status, detailed reports of the flood damage, and information on crop prices for the entire study period. We innovate on the literature through our reconstruction of property damage at the parish level, as well as of the economic development in the region, combined with family reconstitutions. We investigate the short-term impact of the flood on marital fertility and child mortality, as well as the long-term impact on age at first childbirth and age at first marriage of individuals who experienced the flood early in life. We use Cox proportional hazard models to study mortality. The timing and the likelihood of transitions are investigated with the help of mixed parametric cure models. We find that child mortality, but not infant mortality, increased in the flood aftermath, but that this increase in mortality was not attributable to the flood-related damage. Furthermore, we find no evidence of changes in the timing of first childbirth or marriage among the affected individuals. These findings contrast with the results of several other studies indicating that external shocks and crisis experience early in life affect life course outcomes.
{"title":"The Aftermath of the February Flood of 1825: Social and Demographic Change in the Krummhörn Region, East Frisia","authors":"Kai P. Willführ , Josep Sottile Perez","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101650","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101650","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In February 1825, the dikes broke after a spring tide in the Krummhörn region in East Frisia, Germany, causing a severe disaster. Although the flood did not claim many victims, substantial damage was done to the farmland, and the economic crisis that followed permanently changed the social structure in the Krummhörn. We study family reconstitutions of the region linked to information about socioeconomic status, detailed reports of the flood damage, and information on crop prices for the entire study period. We innovate on the literature through our reconstruction of property damage at the parish level, as well as of the economic development in the region, combined with family reconstitutions. We investigate the short-term impact of the flood on marital fertility and child mortality, as well as the long-term impact on age at first childbirth and age at first marriage of individuals who experienced the flood early in life. We use Cox proportional hazard models to study mortality. The timing and the likelihood of transitions are investigated with the help of mixed parametric cure models. We find that child mortality, but not infant mortality, increased in the flood aftermath, but that this increase in mortality was not attributable to the flood-related damage. Furthermore, we find no evidence of changes in the timing of first childbirth or marriage among the affected individuals. These findings contrast with the results of several other studies indicating that external shocks and crisis experience early in life affect life course outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101650"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142901967","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101648
Stefan Bauernschuster , Matthias Blum , Erik Hornung , Christoph Koenig
How did the 1918 Influenza pandemic affect elections in Weimar Germany? We combine a panel of election results (1893–1933) with spatial heterogeneity in excess flu mortality to assess the pandemic’s effect on voting behavior across constituencies. Applying a dynamic differences-in-differences approach, we find that areas with higher influenza mortality saw a lasting shift towards leftwing parties. We argue that pandemic intensity increased the salience of public health policy, prompting voters to reward parties signaling competence in health issues. Alternative explanations such as pandemic-induced economic hardship, punishment of incumbents, or political polarization are not supported by our findings.
{"title":"The political effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic in Weimar Germany","authors":"Stefan Bauernschuster , Matthias Blum , Erik Hornung , Christoph Koenig","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101648","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101648","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>How did the 1918 Influenza pandemic affect elections in Weimar Germany? We combine a panel of election results (1893–1933) with spatial heterogeneity in excess flu mortality to assess the pandemic’s effect on voting behavior across constituencies. Applying a dynamic differences-in-differences approach, we find that areas with higher influenza mortality saw a lasting shift towards leftwing parties. We argue that pandemic intensity increased the salience of public health policy, prompting voters to reward parties signaling competence in health issues. Alternative explanations such as pandemic-induced economic hardship, punishment of incumbents, or political polarization are not supported by our findings.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101648"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142901965","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2025-01-30DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101656
James J Feigenbaum , Jonas Helgertz , Joseph Price
During the past decade, scholars have produced a vast amount of research using linked historical individual-level data, shaping and changing our understanding of the past. This linked data revolution has been powered by methodological and computational advances, partly focused on supervised machine-learning methods that rely on training data. The importance of obtaining high-quality training data for the performance of the record linkage algorithm largely, however, remains unknown. This paper comprehensively examines the role of training data, and—by extension—improves our understanding of best practices in supervised methods of probabilistic record linkage. First, we compare the speed and costs of building training data using different methods. Second, we document high rates of conditional accuracy across the training data sets, rates that are especially high when built with access to more information. Third, we show that data constructed by record linking algorithms learning from different training-data-generation methods do not substantially differ in their accuracy, either overall or across demographic groups, though algorithms tend to perform best when their feature space aligns with the features used to build the training data. Lastly, we introduce errors in the training data and find that the examined record linking algorithms are remarkably capable of making accurate links even working with flawed training data.
{"title":"Examining the role of training data for supervised methods of automated record linkage: Lessons for best practice in economic history","authors":"James J Feigenbaum , Jonas Helgertz , Joseph Price","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101656","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2025.101656","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>During the past decade, scholars have produced a vast amount of research using linked historical individual-level data, shaping and changing our understanding of the past. This linked data revolution has been powered by methodological and computational advances, partly focused on supervised machine-learning methods that rely on training data. The importance of obtaining high-quality training data for the performance of the record linkage algorithm largely, however, remains unknown. This paper comprehensively examines the role of training data, and—by extension—improves our understanding of best practices in supervised methods of probabilistic record linkage. First, we compare the speed and costs of building training data using different methods. Second, we document high rates of conditional accuracy across the training data sets, rates that are especially high when built with access to more information. Third, we show that data constructed by record linking algorithms learning from different training-data-generation methods do not substantially differ in their accuracy, either overall or across demographic groups, though algorithms tend to perform best when their feature space aligns with the features used to build the training data. Lastly, we introduce errors in the training data and find that the examined record linking algorithms are remarkably capable of making accurate links even working with flawed training data.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101656"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143553003","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-12-18DOI: 10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101652
Tommy Bengtsson, Luciana Quaranta
This study analyses how the standard of living for different social groups changed when Sweden developed from an agricultural to an industrial society and when the first steps towards a modern welfare society were taken. As a measure of living standards, we use the ability to overcome short-term economic stress caused by high food prices. We use individual-level longitudinal data from 1813 to 1967 for a rural/semi-urban area in southern Sweden with similar economic development, occupational structure, life expectancy and fertility to the country as a whole. We found that during the first part of the 19th century, when agriculture was reformed and grain became an export product, workers, but not farmers and other social groups, deliberately postponed births in response to rising food prices. Despite these efforts to maintain consumption, workers and their families suffered increased mortality risks during years of high food prices, indicating that they lived close to the subsistence margin and could not save to ensure consumption in bad times. In the second half of the 19th century, rising real wages improved workers’ living conditions and the mortality response to economic stress decreased. By the 20th century, as the economy progressed and welfare systems emerged, the mortality response disappeared entirely. In contrast, childbearing was still affected by economic cycles but now only during turmoil of the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic and not afterwards.
{"title":"The escape from hunger: The impact of food prices on well-being in Sweden, 1813–1967","authors":"Tommy Bengtsson, Luciana Quaranta","doi":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101652","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.eeh.2024.101652","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study analyses how the standard of living for different social groups changed when Sweden developed from an agricultural to an industrial society and when the first steps towards a modern welfare society were taken. As a measure of living standards, we use the ability to overcome short-term economic stress caused by high food prices. We use individual-level longitudinal data from 1813 to 1967 for a rural/semi-urban area in southern Sweden with similar economic development, occupational structure, life expectancy and fertility to the country as a whole. We found that during the first part of the 19th century, when agriculture was reformed and grain became an export product, workers, but not farmers and other social groups, deliberately postponed births in response to rising food prices. Despite these efforts to maintain consumption, workers and their families suffered increased mortality risks during years of high food prices, indicating that they lived close to the subsistence margin and could not save to ensure consumption in bad times. In the second half of the 19th century, rising real wages improved workers’ living conditions and the mortality response to economic stress decreased. By the 20th century, as the economy progressed and welfare systems emerged, the mortality response disappeared entirely. In contrast, childbearing was still affected by economic cycles but now only during turmoil of the First World War and the 1918 influenza pandemic and not afterwards.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":47413,"journal":{"name":"Explorations in Economic History","volume":"96 ","pages":"Article 101652"},"PeriodicalIF":2.6,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142901964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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