Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.
Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research (IGIER), Bocconi University, Milan, Italy.
Health Econ. 2021 Apr;30(4):840-857. doi: 10.1002/hec.4218. Epub 2021 Feb 8.
Recent studies argue that major crises can have long-lasting effects on individual behavior. While most studies focused on natural disasters, we explore the consequences of the global pandemic caused by a lethal influenza virus in 1918-19: the so-called "Spanish Flu." This was by far the worst pandemic of modern history, causing up to 100 million deaths worldwide. Using information about attitudes of respondents to the General Social Survey, we find evidence that experiencing the pandemic likely had permanent consequences in terms of individuals' social trust. Our findings suggest that lower social trust was passed on to the descendants of the survivors of the Spanish Flu who migrated to the United States. As trust is a crucial factor for long-term economic development, our research offers a new angle from which to assess current health threats.
最近的研究表明，重大危机对个人行为可能会产生持久的影响。虽然大多数研究都集中在自然灾害上，但我们探讨了 1918-19 年由致命流感病毒引起的全球大流行（即所谓的“西班牙流感”）的后果。这是现代历史上最严重的一次大流行，导致全球多达 1 亿人死亡。利用关于受访者对综合社会调查态度的信息，我们发现有证据表明，从个人的社会信任角度来看，经历大流行可能会产生永久的后果。我们的研究结果表明，较低的社会信任会传递给那些移居到美国的西班牙流感幸存者的后代。由于信任是长期经济发展的关键因素，我们的研究为评估当前的健康威胁提供了一个新的角度。
