IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/ereveh/v26y2022i1p62-77..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Quantifying the mortality impact of the 1935 old-age assistance

Author

Listed:
  • Gregori Galofré-Vilà
  • Martin McKee
  • David Stuckler

Abstract

In 1935, the United States introduced the old-age assistance (OAA) program, a means-tested program to help the elderly poor. The OAA improved retirement conditions and aimed to enable older persons to live independently. We use the transition from early elderly plans to OAA and the large differences in payments and eligibility across states to show that OAA reduced mortality by between 30 and 39 percent among those older than 65 years. This finding, based on an event study design, is robust to a range of specifications, a range of fixed effects, placebo tests, and a border-pair policy discontinuity design using county-level data. The largest mortality reductions came from drops in communicable and infectious diseases, such as influenza and nephritis, and mostly affected white citizens.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregori Galofré-Vilà & Martin McKee & David Stuckler, 2022. "Quantifying the mortality impact of the 1935 old-age assistance," European Review of Economic History, European Historical Economics Society, vol. 26(1), pages 62-77.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:ereveh:v:26:y:2022:i:1:p:62-77.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/ereh/heab001
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fogel, Robert W. & Grotte, Nathaniel, 2011. "Major Findings from The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 1-9.
    2. Janet Currie & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Health Insurance Eligibility, Utilization of Medical Care, and Child Health," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 431-466.
    3. Quadagno, Jill, 1988. "The Transformation of Old Age Security," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226699233, September.
    4. Floud,Roderick & Fogel,Robert W. & Harris,Bernard & Hong,Sok Chul, 2011. "The Changing Body," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521705615.
      • Floud,Roderick & Fogel,Robert W. & Harris,Bernard & Hong,Sok Chul, 2011. "The Changing Body," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521879750.
    5. Roderick Floud & Robert W. Fogel & Bernard Harris & Sok Chul Hong, 2011. "The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World since 1700," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number foge10-1, March.
    6. Robert Fogel & Dora Costa, 1997. "A theory of technophysio evolution, with some implications for forecasting population, health care costs, and pension costs," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 34(1), pages 49-66, February.
    7. Stefan Bauernschuster & Anastasia Driva & Erik Hornung, 2020. "Bismarck’s Health Insurance and the Mortality Decline [Disease and Development: The Effect of Life Expectancy on Economic Growth]," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 18(5), pages 2561-2607.
    8. Wallis, John Joseph, 1991. "The Political Economy of New Deal Fiscal Federalism," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 29(3), pages 510-524, July.
    9. Galofré-Vilà, Gregori & Meissner, Christopher M. & McKee, Martin & Stuckler, David, 2021. "Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 81(1), pages 81-113, March.
    10. Alston, Lee J. & Ferrie, Joseph P., 1985. "Labor Costs, Paternalism, and Loyalty in Southern Agriculture: A Constraint on the Growth of the Welfare State," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 45(1), pages 95-117, March.
    11. Willmore, Larry, 2007. "Universal Pensions for Developing Countries," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 24-51, January.
    12. Daron Acemoglu & Pascual Restrepo, 2017. "Secular Stagnation? The Effect of Aging on Economic Growth in the Age of Automation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 174-179, May.
    13. Price Fishback, 2017. "How Successful Was the New Deal? The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies in the 1930s," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 55(4), pages 1435-1485, December.
    14. Stoian, Adrian & Fishback, Price, 2010. "Welfare spending and mortality rates for the elderly before the Social Security era," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-27, January.
    15. Costa, Dora L., 1999. "A house of her own: old age assistance and the living arrangements of older nonmarried women," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 39-59, April.
    16. Parsons, Donald O., 1991. "Male Retirement Behavior in the United States, 1930–1950," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 657-674, September.
    17. Fishback, Price V. & Haines, Michael R. & Kantor, Shawn, 2001. "The Impact of the New Deal on Black and White Infant Mortality in the South," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 93-122, January.
    18. Lewis, Joshua, 2018. "Infant Health, Women's Fertility, and Rural Electrification in the United States, 1930–1960," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 118-154, March.
    19. Arthi, Vellore, 2018. "“The Dust Was Long in Settling†: Human Capital and the Lasting Impact of the American Dust Bowl," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 196-230, March.
    20. Daniel K. Fetter & Lee M. Lockwood, 2018. "Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2174-2211, August.
    21. Sonia Bhalotra & Atheendar Venkataramani, 2011. "The Captain of the Men of Death and His Shadow: Long-Run Impacts of Early Life Pneumonia Exposure," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 11/273, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    22. Andrew Goodman-Bacon, 2018. "Public Insurance and Mortality: Evidence from Medicaid Implementation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(1), pages 216-262.
    23. Currie, Janet & Gruber, Jonathan, 1996. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Changes in the Medicaid Eligibility of Pregnant Women," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 104(6), pages 1263-1296, December.
    24. Price V. Fishback & Michael R. Haines & Shawn Kantor, 2007. "Births, Deaths, and New Deal Relief during the Great Depression," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 89(1), pages 1-14, February.
    25. Friedberg, Leora, 1999. "The effect of old age assistance on retirement," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(2), pages 213-232, February.
    26. Robert W. Fogel & Nathaniel Grotte, 2011. "An Overview of The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the Western World Since 1700," NBER Working Papers 16938, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Johannes Haushofer & Jeremy Shapiro, 2016. "The Short-term Impact of Unconditional Cash Transfers to the Poor: ExperimentalEvidence from Kenya," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1973-2042.
    28. Fishback, Price & Kachanovskaya, Valentina, 2015. "The Multiplier for Federal Spending in the States During the Great Depression," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(1), pages 125-162, March.
    29. Costa, Dora L., 2010. "Pensions and Retirement Among Black Union Army Veterans," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 567-592, September.
    30. Fishback, Price V., 2020. "Social Insurance and Public Assistance in the Twentieth-Century United States," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(2), pages 311-350, June.
    31. Arindrajit Dube & T. William Lester & Michael Reich, 2010. "Minimum Wage Effects Across State Borders: Estimates Using Contiguous Counties," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 945-964, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jacks, David S. & Pendakur, Krishna & Shigeoka, Hitoshi, 2023. "Urban mortality and the repeal of federal prohibition," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 89(C).
    2. Jose Valderrama & Javier Olivera, 2023. "The effects of social pensions on mortality among the extreme poor elderly," LISER Working Paper Series 2023-05, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Galofré Vilà, Gregori, 2020. "Quantifying the impact of aid to dependent children: An epidemiological framework⁎," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Daniel Gallardo‐Albarrán, 2020. "Sanitary infrastructures and the decline of mortality in Germany, 1877–1913," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 73(3), pages 730-757, August.
    3. Price Fishback & Samuel Allen & Jonathan Fox & Brendan Livingston, 2010. "A Patchwork Safety Net: A Survey Of Cliometric Studies Of Income Maintenance Programs In The United States In The First Half Of The Twentieth Century," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(5), pages 895-940, December.
    4. Enrique Acosta & Alain Gagnon & Nadine Ouellette & Robert R. Bourbeau & Marilia R. Nepomuceno & Alyson A. van Raalte, 2020. "The boomer penalty: excess mortality among baby boomers in Canada and the United States," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2020-003, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    5. Daniel K. Fetter & Lee M. Lockwood, 2018. "Government Old-Age Support and Labor Supply: Evidence from the Old Age Assistance Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 108(8), pages 2174-2211, August.
    6. Price V. Fishback & John Joseph Wallis, 2012. "What Was New About the New Deal?," NBER Working Papers 18271, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Elena Sánchez-García & José-Miguel Martinez-Carrión & Jose Manuel Terán & Carlos Varea, 2021. "Biological Well-Being during the “Economic Miracle” in Spain: Height, Weight and Body Mass Index of Conscripts in the City of Madrid, 1955–1974," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(24), pages 1-16, December.
    8. Dora L. Costa, 2015. "Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 53(3), pages 503-570, September.
    9. Samuel Berlinski & Norbert Schady, 2015. "Daycare Services: It’s All about Quality," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Samuel Berlinski & Norbert Schady (ed.), The Early Years, chapter 4, pages 91-119, Palgrave Macmillan.
    10. Pierre Leviaux & Antoine Parent, 2018. "The biological hypothesis in cliometrics of growth: a methodological critique of Fogel (post 1982) and Ashraf & Galor (2013)," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 929-950, September.
    11. M. Caridad Araujo & Yyannu Cruz-Aguayo & Analia Jaimovich & Sharon Lynn Kagan, 2015. "Drawing Up an Institutional Architecture," IDB Publications (Book Chapters), in: Samuel Berlinski & Norbert Schady (ed.), The Early Years: Child Well-Being and the Role of Public Policy, edition 1, chapter 7, pages 179-202, Inter-American Development Bank.
    12. Price V. Fishback, 2012. "Relief During the Great Depression in Australia and America," Australian Economic History Review, Economic History Society of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 52(3), pages 221-249, November.
    13. Andreea Balan-Cohen, 2008. "Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise? The Impact of the Old Age Assistance Program on Elderly Mortality in the United States," Discussion Papers Series, Department of Economics, Tufts University 0719, Department of Economics, Tufts University.
    14. Scott A. Carson, 2020. "Female and Male Body Mass, Height, and Weight during US Economic Development: 1860s-1930s," CESifo Working Paper Series 8447, CESifo.
    15. Inwood, Kris & Oxley, Les & Roberts, Evan, 2022. "The mortality risk of being overweight in the twentieth century: Evidence from two cohorts of New Zealand men," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 86(C).
    16. Enrique Acosta & Stacey A. Hallman & Lisa Y. Dillon & Nadine Ouellette & Robert Bourbeau & D. Ann Herring & Kris Inwood & David J. D. Earn & Joaquin Madrenas & Matthew S. Miller & Alain Gagnon, 2019. "Determinants of Influenza Mortality Trends: Age-Period-Cohort Analysis of Influenza Mortality in the United States, 1959–2016," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1723-1746, October.
    17. Scott A. Carson, 2022. "Female and Male Calories Across the 19th and Early 20th Century Distributions Using Quantile Regression," CESifo Working Paper Series 10051, CESifo.
    18. José Joaquín García-Gómez & Juan Diego Pérez-Cebada, 2020. "A Socio-Environmental History of a Copper Mining Company: Rio-Tinto Company Limited (1874–1930)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-17, June.
    19. Galofré-Vilà, Gregori, 2018. "Growth and maturity: A quantitative systematic review and network analysis in anthropometric history," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 107-118.
    20. Antonio M. Linares-Luján & Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno, 2021. "Rural Height Penalty or Socioeconomic Penalization? The Nutritional Inequality in Backward Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-25, April.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:ereveh:v:26:y:2022:i:1:p:62-77.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/ereh .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.