Pandemics and Regional Economic Growth: Evidence from the Great Influenza in Italy

We investigate the link between the 1918 Great Influenza and regional economic growth in Italy, a country in which the measures implemented by public authorities to contain the contagion were limited or ineffective. The pandemic caused 600,000 deaths in Italy: 1.2% of the population. Going from regions with the lowest mortality to those with the highest mortality is associated to a decline in per capita GDP growth of 6.5%, which dissipated within three years. Our estimates provide an upper bound of the adverse effect of pandemics on regional economic growth in the absence of non-pharmaceutical public-health interventions.