IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/restat/v104y2022i1p187-203.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Effect of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on Income Inequality: Evidence from Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Sergio Galletta

    (University of Bergamo)

  • Tommaso Giommoni

    (ETH Zürich)

Abstract

We estimate the effect of the 1918 influenza pandemic on income inequality in Italian municipalities. Our identification strategy exploits the exogenous diffusion of influenza across municipalities due to the presence of infected soldiers on leave from World War I operations. The measures of income inequality come from newly digitized historical administrative records on taxpayer incomes. We show that in the short and medium run, income inequality is higher in municipalities more afflicted by the pandemic. The effect is mostly explained by an increase in the share of income held by the rich to the detriment of the other strata of the population.

Suggested Citation

  • Sergio Galletta & Tommaso Giommoni, 2022. "The Effect of the 1918 Influenza Pandemic on Income Inequality: Evidence from Italy," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 187-203, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:104:y:2022:i:1:p:187-203
    DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_01075
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_01075
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/rest_a_01075?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Guido Alfani, 2022. "Epidemics, Inequality, and Poverty in Preindustrial and Early Industrial Times," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 60(1), pages 3-40, March.
    2. Brzezinski, Michal, 2021. "The impact of past pandemics on economic and gender inequalities," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 43(C).
    3. Théophile T Azomahou & Njuguna Ndung'U & Mahamady Ouedraogo, 2021. "Coping with a dual shock : the economic effects of COVID-19 and oil price crises on African economies," Post-Print hal-03344118, HAL.
    4. Peña Blasco, Guillermo, 2021. "The coronavirus: Black swan and endowment shock," Revista Galega de Economía, University of Santiago de Compostela. Faculty of Economics and Business., vol. 30(1), pages 1-14.
    5. Aloysius Gunadi Brata & Eusebius Pantja Pramudya & Esther Sri Astuti & Heffi Christya Rahayu & Heronimus Heron, 2021. "COVID-19 and Socio-Economic Inequalities in Indonesia: A Subnational-level Analysis," Working Papers DP-2021-04, Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA).
    6. James Bootsma & Thomas J. Carter & Xin Scott Chen & Christopher Hajzler & Argyn Toktamyssov, 2020. "2020 US Neutral Rate Assessment," Discussion Papers 2020-12, Bank of Canada.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:restat:v:104:y:2022:i:1:p:187-203. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.