Working Paper: NBER ID: w11825
Authors: 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 data sets 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 the impact of friends on survival probabilities.
Keywords: Social Networks; Survival; Prisoners of War; Civil War; Andersonville
JEL Codes: I120; Z130
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| social networks (Z13) | consumption (E21) |
| consumption (E21) | survival probability (C41) |
| disease environment (I12) | survival probability (C41) |
| friends (Y70) | mortality risk (J17) |
| social networks (Z13) | survival probabilities (C41) |
| closer ties (F55) | survival chances (C41) |
| friends (Y70) | survival probabilities (C41) |
| friends (Y70) | predicted probability of death (C41) |