Insuring Against Hunger? Long-Term Political Consequences of Exposure to the Dutch Famine

Pahontu, Raluca L.; Hooijer, Gerda; Rueda, David

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3895192

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…For example, attempts to insure the risks associated with highly specific labour market skills have been shown to drive broad welfare state attitudes (Iversen and Soskice 2001), and a higher likelihood of lost employment has been shown to be associated with support for more generous unemployment benefits as a way of insuring that risk (Rehm 2009). And indeed, shocks to individuals' health and human capital have been shown to increase support for the welfare state and the Left (Pahontu, Hooijer, and Rueda 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk and Health Policy Preferences: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

2021

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk and Health Policy Preferences: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

2021

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“…For example, attempts to insure against the risks associated with highly specific labour market skills have been shown to drive broad welfare state attitudes (Iversen and Soskice 2001), and a higher likelihood of lost employment has been shown to be associated with support for more generous unemployment benefits as a way of insuring against those risks (Rehm 2009). Indeed, shocks to individuals' health and human capital have been shown to increase support for the welfare state and the Left (Pahontu, Hooijer and Rueda 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk and Preferences for Government Healthcare Spending: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

Blumenau

Hicks

Pahontu

2022

Brit. J. Polit. Sci.

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The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic constituted a large shock to the risk of acquiring a disease that represents a meaningful threat to health. We investigate whether individuals subject to larger increases in objective health risk – operationalized by occupation-based measures of proximity to other people – became more supportive of increased government healthcare spending during the crisis. Using panel data that track UK individuals before (May 2018–December 2019) and after (June 2020) the outbreak of the pandemic, we implement a fixed-effect design that was pre-registered before the key treatment variable was available to us. While individuals in high-risk occupations were more worried about their personal risk of infection and had higher COVID-19 death rates, there is no evidence that increased health risks during COVID-19 shifted either attitudes on government spending on healthcare or broader attitudes relating to redistribution. Our findings are consistent with recent research demonstrating the limited effects of the pandemic on political attitudes.

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Early-Life Origins of Wartime Behaviour: The Irish Potato Famine and Desertion in the American Civil War

Potts

2024

Comparative Political Studies

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How does pre-war trauma impact battlefield behaviour? I study Irish troops in the American Civil War who experienced the Potato Famine over a decade prior. I use birth cohorts, sibling birth order, adult height, and the geography of last names in Ireland to measure famine exposure within the Irish group at the level of individual soldiers. Each strategy indicates that famine exposure increases desertion. Developing and testing observable implications from theory, I show that heightened risk aversion is the most plausible mechanism. Once soldiers are socialized into active combat through collective risk-sharing the famine effect dissipates. This research contributes to our understanding of the causes of contentious behaviour, how the behavioural legacies of atrocities play-out sans partisanship, and the importance of pre-migration experiences.

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Insuring Against Hunger? Long-Term Political Consequences of Exposure to the Dutch Famine

Cited by 3 publications

References 58 publications

Risk and Health Policy Preferences: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

Risk and Health Policy Preferences: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

Risk and Preferences for Government Healthcare Spending: Evidence from the UK COVID-19 Crisis

Early-Life Origins of Wartime Behaviour: The Irish Potato Famine and Desertion in the American Civil War

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