https://hdl.handle.net/10419/90438 2026-10-06T21:01:22Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/335165 Title: The long-term consequences of the global 1918 influenza pandemic: A systematic analysis of census data from 51 countries Authors: Wójcik, Juditha; Bommer, Christian; Naeher, Dominik; Vollmer, Sebastian Abstract: Several country-level studies, including a prominent one for the United States, have identified long-term adverse effects of in-utero exposure to the 1918 influenza pandemic on economic outcomes. Although this pandemic was a global phenomenon, with an estimated 500 million people infected worldwide, no comprehensive global study on its long-term economic effects exists. We address this gap by systematically analyzing harmonized census data from 51 countries. Using the same empirical approach as previous studies, we find no evidence of consistent long-term effects on educational attainment and employment across countries. Overall, our results are difficult to reconcile with the view that in-utero exposure to the 1918 influenza pandemic was associated with systematic long-term adverse effects on economic outcomes at the population level. A comprehensive set of robustness checks do not alter this conclusion. 2025-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/303196 Title: Hospital construction and emergency waiting time: Evidence from Nicaragua Authors: Frohnweiler, Sarah; Heesemann, Esther Luise; Pérez-Alvarez, Marcello; Santos Silva, Manuel; Vollmer, Sebastian Abstract: We investigate the impact of a large new public hospital on directly observed waiting times in emergency departments of other public hospitals in Nicaragua. Using a difference-indifferences design, we estimate a significant decrease in waiting time by 42% or 10.1 minutes in nearby hospitals compared to hospitals that are further away. The waiting time reduction is largest for nearby hospitals specialized in maternal and paediatric health, as these services overlap the most with those of the new hospital. Findings remain robust to facility and department controls, outlier exclusion, and alternative treatment definitions. A complementary cost-benefit analysis shows that, in addition to the immediate reduction in opportunity costs, the shorter waiting times can also contribute to a reduction in lost earnings by improving patients' health outcomes. Estimates suggest an amortization period of less than one year. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/303197 Title: Healthy diet based poverty lines Authors: Stehl, Jonas; Depenbusch, Lutz; Vollmer, Sebastian Abstract: Access to a healthy diet is a fundamental human right, yet a significant portion of the global population faces barriers to realizing this right. Conventional poverty metrics are designed around food consumption inadequate for lifelong health. We propose poverty lines based on the cost of a healthy diet and explore their key metrics such as headcount ratios and the poverty gap. According to our proposed poverty lines, 2,283 to 2,865 million people were poor in 2022, facing a shortfall of US$ 1,657 to US$ 2,370 billion per year to meet their basic needs. This is in contrast to 654 million people who are considered to live in extreme poverty according to the World Bank's conventional poverty line. Further, these poverty lines identify 286 to 868 million more people as poor compared to the Societal Poverty Line, with the majority of these individuals concentrated in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/10419/302918 Title: Spousal Trust Alignment and Intra-Household Cooperation Authors: Sternberg, Henrike; Steinert, Janina Isabel; Vollmer, Sebastian Abstract: We implement a binary trust game between 211 married couples from low-income households in urban India. In a separate experiment, these spouses randomly received either only a joint savings device (control) or, additionally, a device for individual usage (treatment). Combining data from both experiments, we examine how the impact of the strategically usable savings device varies by spouses' trust and trustworthiness, particularly, by their alignment. We find that wives also receiving the individual device reported significantly higher savings only when spouses' decisions in the trust game were aligned. When decisions were misaligned, the coefficient turned negative. The results suggest that, under positive alignment (wives justifiably trusting their husbands), higher savings were achieved through wives' increased involvement in household decisions. Conversely, in couples where wives (justifiably) mistrust their husbands, they used the private device to hide money to realize higher savings. Our findings encourage household-based interventions to consider spouses' (mis)perceptions about intra-household cooperation. 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z