IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sef/csefwp/479.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Heterogenous Mechanisms in WWII Stress Transmission: Evidence from a Natural Experiment

Author

Listed:

Abstract

This paper analyses how in utero exposure to maternal stress from WWII affects long-term health and economic outcomes and describes different mechanisms at work, showing that current health conditions are heterogeneously related to the type of fetal stressor. We exploit the Italian armistice of September 8th 1943 as exogenous variation in the war intensity, providing WWII long-run causal effects on objectively measured health and economic outcomes. We find that in utero exposure to intense WWII events had long- lasting effects on health and that Nazi massacres predict late-onset depression, while nutritional deprivation suffered in large cities had lasting effects on diabetes. Finally, we innovate by showing that these effects increase with the age of the treated individuals.

Suggested Citation

  • Vincenzo Atella & Edoardo Di Porto & Joanna Kopinska, 2017. "Heterogenous Mechanisms in WWII Stress Transmission: Evidence from a Natural Experiment," CSEF Working Papers 479, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    • Handle: RePEc:sef:csefwp:479
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.csef.it/WP/wp479.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Currie, Janet & Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2013. "Weathering the storm: Hurricanes and birth outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 487-503.
    2. Havari, Enkelejda & Peracchi, Franco, 2017. "Growing up in wartime: Evidence from the era of two world wars," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 9-32.
    3. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Gilles Postel-Vinay & Timothy M. Watts, 2007. "Long Run Health Impacts of Income Shocks: Wine and Phylloxera in 19th Century France," NBER Working Papers 12895, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Sharon Maccini & Dean Yang, 2009. "Under the Weather: Health, Schooling, and Economic Consequences of Early-Life Rainfall," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(3), pages 1006-1026, June.
    5. Neelsen, Sven & Stratmann, Thomas, 2011. "Effects of prenatal and early life malnutrition: Evidence from the Greek famine," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 479-488, May.
    6. Arturas Petronis, 2010. "Epigenetics as a unifying principle in the aetiology of complex traits and diseases," Nature, Nature, vol. 465(7299), pages 721-727, June.
    7. Tom Bundervoet & Philip Verwimp & Richard Akresh, 2009. "Health and Civil War in Rural Burundi," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 44(2).
    8. Climent Quintana-Domeque & Pedro Rodenas-Serrano, 2014. "Terrorism and Human Capital at Birth: Bomb Casualties and Birth Outcomes in Spain," Working Papers 2014-020, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    9. Arthur Lewbel, 2007. "Estimation of Average Treatment Effects with Misclassification," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(2), pages 537-551, March.
    10. Goldin, Claudia D, 1991. "The Role of World War II in the Rise of Women's Employment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 741-756, September.
    11. Richard Akresh & Sonia Bhalotra & Marinella Leone & Una Okonkwo Osili, 2012. "War and Stature: Growing Up during the Nigerian Civil War," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(3), pages 273-277, May.
    12. Maarten Lindeboom & Reyn van Ewijk, 2015. "“Babies of the War: The effect of war exposure early in life on mortality throughout life”," Working Papers 1519, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    13. Abhijit Banerjee & Esther Duflo & Gilles Postel-Vinay & Tim Watts, 2010. "Long-Run Health Impacts of Income Shocks: Wine and Phylloxera in Nineteenth-Century France," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 714-728, November.
    14. Iris Kesternich & Bettina Siflinger & James P. Smith & Joachim K. Winter, 2014. "The Effects of World War II on Economic and Health Outcomes across Europe," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 96(1), pages 103-118, March.
    15. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie, 2011. "Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 25(3), pages 153-172, Summer.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. van Ewijk, Reyn & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2022. "Selective mortality and fertility and long run health effects of prenatal wartime exposure," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    2. Nadine Geiger & Sebastian Wichert, 2019. "Birth in times of war - An investigation of health, mortality and social class using historical clinical records," CESifo Working Paper Series 7593, CESifo.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. van Ewijk, Reyn & Lindeboom, Maarten, 2022. "Selective mortality and fertility and long run health effects of prenatal wartime exposure," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    2. Richard Akresh & Sonia Bhalotra & Marinella Leone & Una Osili, 2023. "First- and Second-Generation Impacts of the Biafran War," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 58(2), pages 488-531.
    3. Eskander, Shaikh M.S.U. & Barbier, Edward B., 2022. "Long-term impacts of the 1970 cyclone in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. Asadul Islam & Paul Raschky & Russell Smyth, 2017. "The Long-Term Health Effects of Mass Political Violence: Evidence from China’s Cultural Revolution," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 132(1), pages 257-272, May.
    5. Schiman, Jeffrey C. & Kaestner, Robert & Lo Sasso, Anthony T., 2019. "Infant mortality and adult wellbeing: Evidence from wartime Britain," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 12-29.
    6. Reyn van Ewijk & Maarten Lindeboom, 2016. "Why people born during World War II are healthier," Working Papers 1619, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.
    7. Richard Akresh & Sonia Bhalotra & Marinella Leone & Una Osili, 2017. "Hunger Games: First and Second Generation Impacts of the Biafran War," HiCN Working Papers 254, Households in Conflict Network.
    8. Shoji, Masahiro, 2020. "Early-Life Circumstances and Adult Locus of Control: Evidence from 46 Developing Countries," MPRA Paper 99987, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Conte, Bruno & Piemontese, Lavinia & Tapsoba, Augustin, 2023. "The power of markets: Impact of desert locust invasions on child health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(C).
    10. Adamopoulou, Effrosyni & Olivieri, Elisabetta & Triviza, Eleftheria, 2024. "Eating habits, food consumption, and health: The role of early life experiences," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 166(C).
    11. Bertoni, Marco, 2015. "Hungry today, unhappy tomorrow? Childhood hunger and subjective wellbeing later in life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 40-53.
    12. Dagnelie, Olivier & Luca, Giacomo Davide De & Maystadt, Jean-François, 2018. "Violence, selection and infant mortality in Congo," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 153-177.
    13. Li, Jian & Koulovatianos, Christos, 2020. "The long shadows of war in China: Battle shocks in early life and health/wealth accumulation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    14. Hönig, Tillman, 2017. "The Impact of Peace: Evidence from Nigeria," MPRA Paper 83302, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Conzo, Pierluigi & Salustri, Francesco, 2019. "A war is forever: The long-run effects of early exposure to World War II on trust," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    16. Mevlude Akbulut-Yuksel & Zachary Zimmer & Sujita Pandey & Tran Khanh Toan, 2024. "Untold Story of Wartime Children: Results of the Vietnam Health and Aging Study," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 43(2), pages 1-24, April.
    17. Jeffrey C. Schiman & Robert Kaestner & Anthony T. Lo Sasso, 2017. "Early Childhood Health Shocks and Adult Wellbeing: Evidence from Wartime Britain," NBER Working Papers 23763, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Havari, Enkelejda & Peracchi, Franco, 2017. "Growing up in wartime: Evidence from the era of two world wars," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 9-32.
    19. Janet Currie & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, May.
    20. Bruno Arpino & Pierluigi Conzo & Francesco Salustri, 2022. "I am a survivor, keep on surviving: early-life exposure to conflict and subjective survival probabilities in adult life," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(2), pages 471-517, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Fetal programming hypothesis; War exposure; Nazi massacres; Stress; Famine; Chronic diseases; Health expenditure; Long-term effects; Italy.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I1 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health
    • O1 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:sef:csefwp:479. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Dr. Maria Carannante (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cssalit.html .

    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.