Working Paper: NBER ID: w14053
Authors: Dora L. Costa; Matthew E. Kahn
Abstract: We find that veterans of the Union Army who faced greater wartime stress (as measured by higher battlefield mortality rates) experienced higher mortality rates at older ages, but that men who were from more cohesive companies were statistically significantly less likely to be affected by wartime stress. Our results hold for overall mortality, mortality from ischemic heart disease and stroke, and new diagnoses of arteriosclerosis. Our findings represent one of the first long-run health follow-ups of the interaction between stress and social networks in a human population in which both stress and social networks are arguably exogeneous.
Keywords: health; stress; social networks; veterans; mortality
JEL Codes: I12; Z13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| higher battlefield mortality rates (I12) | increased mortality rates at older ages (I12) |
| company cohesion mitigates negative effects of wartime stress on mortality (D74) | higher survival probabilities when company death rates are high (C41) |
| interaction between company cohesion and wartime stress (D74) | protective effect of cohesion (D74) |