Fertility and Early-Life Mortality: Evidence from Smallpox Vaccination in Sweden

Abstract

We examine how the introduction of smallpox vaccination a¤ected early-life mortality and fertility in Sweden during the …rst half of the 19th century. We demonstrate that parishes in counties with higher levels of smallpox mortality prior to the introduction of vaccination experienced a greater decline in infant mortality afterwards. Exploiting this …nding in an instrumental-variable approach reveals that this decline had a negative e¤ect on the birth rate, while the number of surviving children and population growth remained una¤ected.These results suggest that the decline in early-life mortality cannot account for the onset of the fertility decline in Sweden.

Employment effects of payroll tax subsidies

“…The methods developed by Conley et al (2012) allow us to test the sensitivity of our results to violations of this exogeneity assumption. For this purpose, we estimate the second stage coefficient (γ) and its confidence interval if the exclusion restriction is not exactly valid and π deviates from zero (for prior applications see, e.g., Wang 2013, Dimico 2017, Ager et al 2018, or Nybom 2017. We apply the "union of confidence intervals" approach and assume that the coefficient of the instrument (π) in Eq.…”

Employment Effects of Payroll Tax Subsidies

“…The methods developed by Conley et al (2012) allow us to test the sensitivity of our results to violations of this exogeneity assumption. For this purpose, we estimate the second stage coefficient (γ) and its confidence interval if the exclusion restriction is not exactly valid and π deviates from zero (for prior applications see, e.g., Wang 2013, Dimico 2017, Ager et al 2018, or Nybom 2017. We apply the "union of confidence intervals" approach and assume that the coefficient of the instrument (π) in equation ( 3) is drawn from an asymmetric, positive support.…”

Health-Led Growth Since 1800

“…The Bacteriological Revolution associated with the development of germ theories of diseases, in the late-19th century, for example, is probably the most significant event for infant survival probabilities, and it spread widely and quickly across the industrialized world [Black (1996)]. Furthermore, using data for Swedish counties, Ager et al (2015) find that the start of vaccination in 1801 together with the introduction of compulsory vaccination in 1816 had profound negative effects on the infant mortality rate.…”