PrefBlog

Here’s a piece by Kristian Blickle of the New York Fed titled Pandemics Change Cities: Municipal Spending and Voter Extremism in Germany, 1918-1933:

We merge several historical data sets from Germany to show that influenza mortality in 1918-1920 is correlated with societal changes, as measured by municipal spending and city-level extremist voting, in the subsequent decade. First, influenza deaths are associated with lower per capita spending, especially on services consumed by the young. Second, influenza deaths are correlated with the share of votes received by extremist parties in 1932 and 1933. Our election results are robust to controlling for city spending, demographics, war-related population changes, city-level wages, and regional unemployment, and to instrumenting influenza mortality. We conjecture that our findings may be the consequence of long-term societal changes brought about by a pandemic.

… and a BBC piece on the Middle East:

The Middle East has many reasons to fear the coronavirus pandemic, but it has one big advantage when it comes to resisting it. Most people in the region are young.

A rough average is that at least 60% are under the age of 30. That makes them less susceptible to developing Covid-19, the illness that has killed so many people in countries with older populations.

Most governments in the region saw what was happening elsewhere and had time to impose curfews and social distancing measures.

But that is where the Middle East’s advantages end. Years of strife in the world’s least stable region have left weaknesses that the pandemic is sure to deepen.
…
Those same young people who have the best chance of resisting the virus were, before it hit, leading demonstrations against their governments.

Every country has its own grievances, but in the Arab Middle East the protests have centred on corruption, cronyism and reform. Corrupt elites are accused of siphoning off public money that should have gone into public services, not least hospitals.
…
Young people who refused orders to clear the streets for months will not be enjoying the irony that the coronavirus has forced them indoors.

When they emerge they will find the economies that failed miserably to generate jobs for them are now in even worse shape.

The result will be more anger, deepened but not created by the dangers and frustrations of this pandemic year. Leaders will have even fewer options.

So, we may be living in interesting times.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 at 6:34 pm and is filed under Market Action. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.