This study was prepared by Sven Neelsen while he was working with the ifo Institute for Economic Research. It was completed in December 2011 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Department of Economics at the University of Munich in May 2012. The study investigates long-run effects of...

We use data from the West German 1970 census to explore the link between being born during or shortly after World War II and educational and labor market outcomes 25 years later. We document, for the first time, that men and women born in the relatively short period between November 1945 and May...

This article analyses the relationship between male height and age at death among adults born between 1835 and 1939 in fourteen villages in north-east Spain. A total of 1,488 conscripts who died between 1868 and 2019 have been included in the analysis. The height data have been obtained from...

We analyze interaction effects of birth weight and the business cycle at birth on individual cardiovascular (CV) mortality later in life. In addition, we examine to what extent these long-run effects run by way of cognitive ability and education and to what extent those mitigate the long-run...

This paper investigates the returns to health care provision during the mortality transition. We construct a new panel data set covering German municipalities from 1928 to 1936. The endogeneity of health care supply is addressed by using the expulsion of Jewish physicians from statutory health...

While World War II (WWII) is often employed as natural experiment to identify long-term effects of adverse early-life and prenatal conditions, little is known about the short-term effects. We estimate the short-term impact of the onset of WWII on newborn health using a unique data set of...

This paper investigates the effect of changes in the physician coverage ratio on infant and disease mortality, utilizing historical data from Germany. The results indicate substantial health effects. One additional physician per 1,000 of population reduces infant mortality by 23%. We find...

This paper investigates the returns to health care provision during the mortality transition. We construct a new panel data set covering German municipalities from 1928 to 1936. The endogeneity of health care supply is addressed by using the expulsion of Jewish physicians from statutory health...

This paper investigates the effect of physicians on infant mortality, stillbirths and the incidence of common childhood diseases. We construct a new panel data set covering German municipalities from 1928 to 1936 based on historical sources. The endogeneity of health care supply is addressed by...