Aerial Bombardments Early in Life and the Ensuing Shape of the Age-Earnings Profile over the Full Working Life

Recent developments have shown that wars are an ongoing part of life across the globe. Bombardments while in utero and around birth may involve exposure to severe stress and hence may lead to long-run effects on health and abilities at high ages. We exploit variation in temporal and regional exposure to bombardments, including those on the civilian population, in Germany among birth cohorts 1942-1949. We advance on the literature by studying economically relevant effects on the full age-earnings profile including the age at which effects on individual labor earnings kick in and the age at retirement. Population register data covering millions of individuals merge records of birth place and birth date to individual earnings time series over the working life and to historical sources of daily bombardments per municipality as well as qualitative contextual information. The data volume and the daily recordings of exposure enable precise inference on effects by gestational month of exposure and their interactions with ages later in life. We control for exposure to post-war famines and deal with possible selectivity by invoking individual fixed-effect estimation methods. The findings highlight long-run damages of war and stress exposure.

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