American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Germs in the Family: The Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Intrahousehold Disease Spread
American Economic Review
(pp. 2643–84)
Abstract
Preschool-aged children get sick frequently and spread disease to other family members. Despite the universality of this experience, there is limited causal evidence on the magnitudes and consequences of these externalities, especially for infant siblings with developing immune systems and brains. We show in Danish administrative data that during infancy, younger siblings have two to three times higher hospitalization rates for respiratory conditions than older siblings. We combine birth order and within-municipality variation in respiratory disease prevalence among young children, finding lasting differential impacts of early-life respiratory disease exposure on younger siblings' earnings, educational attainment, chronic respiratory health, and mental health-related outcomes.Citation
Daysal, N. Meltem, Hui Ding, Maya Rossin-Slater, and Hannes Schwandt. 2026. "Germs in the Family: The Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Intrahousehold Disease Spread." American Economic Review 116 (7): 2643–84. DOI: 10.1257/aer.20231521Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- D13 Household Production and Intrahousehold Allocation
- D62 Externalities
- I12 Health Behavior
- J12 Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure; Domestic Abuse
- J13 Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
- J24 Human Capital; Skills; Occupational Choice; Labor Productivity
- J31 Wage Level and Structure; Wage Differentials