IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/een/camaaa/2021-95.html

Did the great influenza of 1918-1920 trigger a reversal of the first era of globalization?

Author

Listed:
  • Pierre L Siklos

Abstract

I revisit the 1918-20 pandemic and ask whether it led to a reversal in the rise of trade and financial globalization that preceded it. Using annual data for 17 countries for the 1870-1928 period, a variety of tests and techniques are used to draw some robust conclusions. Overall, the pandemic a century ago interrupted, but did not put an end, the first globalization of the 20th century. However, two blocs consisting of combatant and non-combatant countries, experienced significantly different consequences. Globalization was sharply curtailed for the combatant countries while there were few, if any, consequences for globalization in the non-combatant group of countries. That said, there was considerable resilience especially in trade openness among several of the combatant economies. Perhaps changes in the make-up of economic blocs, post-pandemic, is a fallout from shocks of this kind. While there are lessons for the ongoing COVID pandemics differences between the 1920s and today also play a role.

Suggested Citation

  • Pierre L Siklos, 2021. "Did the great influenza of 1918-1920 trigger a reversal of the first era of globalization?," CAMA Working Papers 2021-95, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    • Handle: RePEc:een:camaaa:2021-95
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://crawford.anu.edu.au/sites/default/files/2025-08/95_2021_Siklos.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Andrew Leigh, 2022. "Engaged Egalitarianism: Why the Australian Recovery Must Prioritise Openness," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 41(2), pages 99-109, June.
    2. Masato Shizume, 2022. "The Great Influenza Pandemic in Japan: Policy Responses and Socioeconomic Consequences," Discussion Paper Series DP2022-27, Research Institute for Economics & Business Administration, Kobe University, revised Oct 2022.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • N10 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - General, International, or Comparative
    • O57 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Comparative Studies of Countries
    • F15 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Economic Integration
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:een:camaaa:2021-95. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Cama Admin (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/asanuau.html .

    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.