This paper analyzes the attitudes of industrial employers during the German Empire and the Weimar Republic towards the adoption of public unemployment insurance. While employers initially opposed unemployment insurance, they eventually endorsed it. What explains this shift in attitude? The paper...

We study the impact of social health insurance on mortality. Using the introduction of compulsory health insurance in the German Empire in 1884 as a natural experiment, we estimate flexible difference-in-differences models exploiting variation in eligibility for insurance across occupations. Our...

We investigate the impact on mortality of the world's first compulsory health insurance, established by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of the German Empire, in 1884. Employing a multi-layered empirical setup, we draw on international comparisons and difference-indifferences strategies using...

We study the impact of social health insurance on mortality. Using the introduction of compulsory health insurance in the German Empire in 1884 as a natural experiment, we estimate flexible difference-in-differences models exploiting variation in eligibility for insurance across occupations. Our...

We study the impact of social health insurance on mortality. Using the introduction of compulsory health insurance in the German Empire in 1884 as a natural experiment, we estimate flexible difference-in-differences models exploiting variation in eligibility for insurance across occupations. Our...