Eric Schneider

❕New WP from Eric Schneider and Romola Davenport❕
𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐭𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐒𝐦𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐩𝐨𝐱?
⬇️

🚨 Bottom line: The oft-cited 20–30% CFR for Variola major doesn't hold up across time and place.

We argue for a more nuanced, historically grounded view—context matters.

📄 Read the full paper here: www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-His...

6/6

So why is the consensus CFR (20-30%) for endemic smallpox too high?

Three factors likely biased estimates of CFRs upwards:

1) Under-reporting of smallpox cases

2) Positive selection into vaccination after 1796

3) Selection of severe smallpox cases into hospital samples used to estimate CFRs

5/6

Our findings suggest that smallpox’s lethality wasn’t just about the virus—it was about context.

When adults and children were sick together, there was no one to fetch water, cook food or nurse the sick. High CFRs often reflect crisis conditions, not just the innate virulence of the pathogen.

4/6

Graph showing that where smallpox was endemic, more than 90% of smallpox deaths occurred to children under age 10. However, where epidemic, smallpox deaths could affect adults.

Why the such different CFRs?

In endemic settings like Sweden, smallpox was a childhood disease and adults very rarely contracted smallpox.

But in Iceland, the epidemic struck a population where both adults and children were susceptible. This raised the CFR dramatically.

3/6

Using high-quality mortality records, we estimate smallpox CFRs in two very different contexts:

📍 18th-century Sweden (endemic smallpox): CFR ~8–10%
📍 1707-9 Iceland smallpox epidemic: CFR ~40–53%

2/6

Picture of the title and abstract of the paper.

📜 NEW WORKING PAPER 📜

What was the true case fatality rate (CFR) of smallpox?

My new paper with Romola Davenport (Cambridge) revisits this question using 18th-century data from Sweden and Iceland—and challenges the long-held belief that smallpox CFRs were 20–30%.

🧵👇

1/6

Really cool to see Jordan describing how the medieval economy worked! He covers interesting questions like: What is a peasant? How market oriented were medieval people? And what role did horses play in the medieval economy?

YouTube video by Institute of Economic Affairs How The Black Death Increased Worker's Wages: Medieval England's Economic Revolution | IEA Interview

Thanks to the Institute for Economic Affairs for indulging in my ramblings about my recent research!

youtu.be/pXkofabuCBI?...

@lseechist.bsky.social #econhist

The hidden victims: civilian casualties of the two world wars 6.30pm Thurs 20 Feb | Cormac Ó Gráda | Free public event at LSE

📖 Join us for this book talk by Cormac O'Grada tomorrow evening in person or online, discussing the casualties of the World Wars. O'Grada argues that civilian deaths in the two #WorldWars were much higher than previously estimated.
#lse #econhist #WWI #WWII

www.lse.ac.uk/Events/2025/...

We are now accepting applications for our Annual Workshop on Formal Demography, taking place in-person at UC Berkeley on June 2-6, 2025. Deadline to apply is March 10.

See more information on the workshop and how to apply here: populationsciences.berkeley.edu/wp-content/u...

Please share widely!

@lseechist.bsky.social would be pleased to support suitable applications for the following postdoctoral fellowships beginning in 10/2025. Check the eligibility criteria for the schemes, and if eligible, contact @ericbschneider.bsky.social (e.b.schneider@lse.ac.uk) to discuss your application 1/3

Final reminder about this workshop. We are also grateful to have received funding from the economic history society that will help cover accommodation costs for a couple of PhD students. Please apply now!

Just a reminder about this call for papers!

CFP: Workshop on Health Transitions in the Global South

CFP Deadline 3 February 2025

Workshop 9-10 June 2025 at LSE

Organised by myself and Neil Cummins

Sponsored by the LSE Historical Economic Demography Group

WE KNOW...YOU ARE THINKING!!

📢Call for Papers 6th Conference of the ESHD #Demography Last Days!

The European Society of Historical Demography is pleased to invite submissions for its 6th Conference, to be held in #Bologna #Italy
10-13 September 2025
👉 eshd2025.eshd.eu

Just reposting this in case anyone missed it last week. Please submit your work!

#EconSky #histmed #demography #econhist

Would you please add me?

Workshops Historical Demography Workshops hosted by HEDG at LSE

More information will be available shortly at the following link: www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-His...
And here's a link to the full call for papers: www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/6xdff...

Submission Form for LSE Workshop on Health Transitions in the Global South Please fill out the following form by 3 February 2025 to submit a paper to the workshop. Decisions The workshop will be help 9-10 June 2025 at LSE in London. The workshop is sponsored by the LSE His...

To apply, submit a 300-500 word abstract using the following link: forms.gle/RaLLP7w129aK...

We hope the workshop will be very interdisciplinary with contributions from economic historians, demographers, development economists and historians of medicine and others. Quantitative and qualitative papers are welcome.

Question like:

1) what explains the heterogeneity in the timing of the health transition across the Global South;

2) how did colonialism shape the health transition in the Global South;

3) what were the main drivers of the health transition in the Global South.

This workshop seeks to understand these variations within the Global South. By emphasising a South-South comparison (Frankema 2024), it hopes to shift our default reference from the Global North and yield insights
into key questions about how the health transition varied across populations.

However, this North-South dichotomy may
underemphasise the variation in the health transition within the Global South. For instance, mortality and child stunting decline in the Caribbean began far earlier than in countries with similar levels of income in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia.

In economic history/historical demography, the health transition in the Global North is often taken as the default model from which the Global South diverges. For instance, the transition in the South happened later, more quickly and was driven by medical innovations and global health campaigns.

CFP: Workshop on Health Transitions in the Global South

CFP Deadline 3 February 2025

Workshop 9-10 June 2025 at LSE

Organised by myself and Neil Cummins

Sponsored by the LSE Historical Economic Demography Group

The CfP for the 6th Conference of the European Society of Historical Demography is out!

The conference will be held in Bologna from 10 to 13 September 2025.

The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2025!

eshd2025.eshd.eu

Map of London, East. Colour coded.

Public service announcement that Charles Booth's 'Maps Descriptive of London Poverty, 1898-9' have been uploaded by LSE archive online to be viewed and reproduced freely. 🗃️ unsplash.com/collections/...

CfP for a special issue in
Historical Life Course Studies: "Sources and Databases on Causes of Death in Historical Societies (1800–1950)." Join us!

greatleap.eu/calls/call-f...

Hello @bsky.app!

Let me start off my activity on this website by fully endorsing the beautiful thread that @jordanclaridge.bsky.social has made on our joint work on (in-kind) wages in the Middle Ages, available at *Explorations in Economic History*!

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...