TY  - JOUR
AU  - Lin, Ming-Jen
AU  - Liu, Elaine M
TI  - Does in utero Exposure to Illness Matter? The 1918 Influenza Epidemic in Taiwan as a Natural Experiment
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 20166
PY  - 2014
Y2  - May 2014
DO  - 10.3386/w20166
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w20166
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w20166.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Ming-Jen Lin
Department of Economics
National Taiwan University
No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Rd.
Taipei 10617, Taiwan
E-Mail: mjlin@ntu.edu.tw

Elaine M. Liu
Department of Economics
University of Houston
McElhinney Hall 223D
Houston, TX 77004
Tel: 713/743-3861
Fax: 713/743-3798
E-Mail: emliu@uh.edu
AB  - This paper tests whether in utero conditions affect long-run developmental outcomes using the 1918 influenza pandemic in Taiwan as a natural experiment. Combining several historical and current datasets, we find that cohorts in utero during the pandemic are shorter as children/adolescents and less educated compared to other birth cohorts. We also find that they are more likely to have serious health problems including kidney disease, circulatory and respiratory problems, and diabetes in old age. Despite possible positive selection on health outcomes due to high infant mortality rates during this period (18 percent), our paper finds a strong negative impact of in utero exposure to influenza.
ER  -