Scarred But Wiser : World War 2's Covid Legacy

The paper formalizes and tests the hypothesis that greater exposure to big shocks induces stronger societal responses for adaptation and protection from future big shocks. We find support for this hypothesis in various strands of the literature and in new empirical tests using cross-country data on deaths due to COVID-19 and deaths during World War 2. Countries with higher death rates in the war saw lower death rates in the first wave of the COVID pandemic, though the effect faded in the pandemic’s second wave. Our tests are robust to a wide range of model specifications and alternative assumptions