Bismarck's Health Insurance and the Mortality Decline

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IZA Seminar

Place: Schaumburg-Lippe-Str. 9, 53113 Bonn

Date: 06.03.2018, 12:00 - 13:30

   

Presentation by 

Stefan Bauernschuster (University of Passau)
   

Abstract:

We investigate the impact on mortality of the world's rst compulsory
health insurance, established by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the
German Empire, in 1884. Multiple empirical approaches, based on international
comparisons and di erence-in-di erences strategies using Prussian
administrative panel data to exploit di erences in eligibility for insurance
across occupations, yield a consistent pattern suggesting that Bismarck's
Health Insurance generated a signi cant mortality reduction. The
results are largely driven by a decline of deaths from infectious diseases.
We present prima facie evidence that di usion of new hygiene knowledge
through physicians was an important channel.

   
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