Maarit Olkkola

I am an Economist working in the fields of Labor, Health and Population Economics, as well as Economic History. My main research interest is how children's life chances, skills, and preferences evolve over the life course and intergenerationally. I am especially interested in how public policy affects children. My current research focuses, for example, on the impacts of public health policies and forced migration on health, education, skills, and labor market outcomes.

Publications

Mass Vaccination and Educational Attainment: Evidence from the 1967–68 Measles Eradication Campaign

Journal of Health Economics, Volume 92, 2023, 102828

joint work with: Philipp Barteska, Sonja Dobkowitz, and Michael Rieser

Previous versions of this paper include our Master's thesis at the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics and a working paper circulated as "Vaccine-preventable Childhood Disease and Adult Human Capital: Evidence from the 1967 Measles Eradication Campaign in the United States".

Abstract:

We show that the first nationwide mass vaccination campaign against measles increased educational attainment in the United States. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in exposure to the childhood disease across states right before the Measles Eradication Campaign of 1967–68, which reduced reported measles incidence by 90 percent within two years. Our results suggest that mass vaccination against measles increased the years of education on average by about 0.1 years in the affected cohorts. We also find tentative evidence that the college graduation rate of men increased. 

Working papers

Public Policy and the Child Mortality Transition

Abstract:

I examine the introduction of a public policy that coincided with a large reduction in child mortality: the rollout of universal child health centers to every rural municipality in Finland in the 1940s. The centers offered regular child health counseling visits for children under school age, both on-site and at home. I use newly collected individual-level child mortality data to estimate the effects of the reform on child mortality at different ages. For children aged between one month and one year, who were the most intensively targeted by the policy, I find that access to rural child health centers reduced postneonatal mortality by 9 deaths per thousand live births (27 percent of baseline mortality in the age range one month to one year). Compared to the national mortality trends, this estimate corresponds to approximately half of the decline in postneonatal mortality during 1945–1950 or to approximately one-fourth of the decline in under-five mortality. For child deaths in age range one to four, I find that the mortality of boys declines by 18 deaths per thousand live births (67 percent of baseline mortality of boys in age range one to four).

Work in progress

Universal Child Health Services and the Educational Attainment and Adult Income of Rural Children

Abstract:

I examine the human capital effects of the introduction of universal primary health care services for children. These services were rolled out to all children below school age in 1940s rural Finland, where nearly one-third of municipalities lacked any physicians and ten percent of children died before age five. I find that children who gained access to universal child health services were two percentage points more likely to complete either academic secondary school or a tertiary education degree and earned two percent more income in adulthood. These benefits were the largest for children who gained access prior to birth, but benefits also accrued to children who gained access at ages up to three years old. These benefits may also be an underestimate due to survival selection.

Intergenerational Impacts of Forced Migration (with Elias Dinas, Dominik Hangartner, llona Lahdelma & Matti Sarvimäki)

The Second Demographic Transition in High Income Countries (with Martha J. Bailey, Aline Bütikofer, Francesca Carta, Libertad González, Marion Leturcq, Stefano Lombardi, Olivier Marie, Elena Meroni, Giulia Olivero, Kjell Salvanes, Esmée Zwiers)

Policy Work (in Finnish)

Tuhkarokkorokotuksella on yllättäviä pitkäaikaishyötyjä yhteiskunnalle. VATT Policy Brief 1/2025

Lapsiin kohdistuvan terveyspolitiikan vaikutukset inhimilliseen pääomaan. Kansantaloudellinen aikakauskirja 2/2025