Working Paper: NBER ID: w25541
Authors: Marcella Alsan; Vincenzo Atella; Jay Bhattacharya; Valentina Conti; Iván Mejía Guevara; Grant Miller
Abstract: Throughout history, technological progress has transformed population health, but the distributional effects of these gains are unclear. New substitutes for older, more expensive health technologies can produce convergence in population health outcomes, but may also be prone to “elite capture” leading to divergence. This paper studies the case of penicillin using detailed mortality statistics and exploiting its sharply-timed introduction in Italy after World War II. We find penicillin reduced both the mean and standard deviation of infectious diseases mortality, leading to substantial convergence across disparate regions of Italy. Our results do not appear to be confounded by competing risks or mortality patterns associated with World War II.
Keywords: penicillin; health convergence; mortality; Italy
JEL Codes: I10; J10; N00
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| introduction of penicillin in 1947 (L65) | reduction in mortality rates from infectious diseases (I14) |
| introduction of penicillin in 1947 (L65) | convergence in mortality rates across different regions of Italy (J11) |
| reduction in penicillin-sensitive deaths (I14) | no significant increase in non-communicable disease mortality (I12) |