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Surviving Andersonville: The Benefits of Social Networks in POW Camps

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  • Dora L. Costa
  • Matthew E. Kahn

Abstract

Twenty-seven percent of the Union Army prisoners captured July 1863 or later died in captivity. At Andersonville, the death rate may have been as high as 40 percent. How did men survive such horrific conditions? Using two independent datasets, we find that friends had a statistically significant positive effect on survival probabilities and that the closer the ties between friends as measured by such identifiers as ethnicity, kinship, and the same hometown, the bigger was the impact of friends on survival probabilities. (JEL N41, Z13)

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File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.97.4.1467
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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by American Economic Association in its journal American Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 97 (2007)
Issue (Month): 4 (September)
Pages: 1467-1487

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Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:97:y:2007:i:4:p:1467-1487

Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.97.4.1467
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Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Of Birds and Men
    by Matthew E. Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2011-11-20 15:38:00
  2. Social Capital's Role in Coping in Disaster Areas
    by Matthew Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics on 2012-08-29 15:20:00
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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Cited by:
  1. Steven N. Durlauf & Yannis M. Ioannides, 2010. "Social Interactions," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 451-478, 09.
  2. Dora L. Costa, 2010. "Scarring and Mortality Selection Among Civil War POWs: A Long-Term Mortality, Morbidity and Socioeconomic Follow-Up," NBER Working Papers 16584, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Braggion, F., 2008. "Managers, Firms and (Secret) Social Networks: The Economics of Freemasonry," Discussion Paper 2008-36, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.

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