Prof. Dr. Lukas Schmid

Political Economy, Health and Education Economics

During his research stay in Munich, Lukas D. Schmid will work on three interrelated projects spanning political economy, health economics, and education economics.

First, he plans to investigate the impact of becoming a politician on directorship positions. Using a regression discontinuity design based on Swiss National Council elections (1931-2015) and digitized directorship position data (1934-2018), he compares narrowly elected and narrowly defeated candidates in terms of their directorship trajectories after the election. This allows him to assess firms’ incentives to connect with politicians.

The second project explores the long-term effects of the 1918 influenza pandemic on health-related attitudes and behavior. Drawing on individual death records, vaccination data, and voting outcomes from the Swiss canton of Grisons, Mr. Schmid studies how different exposures to pandemic mortality influenced health attitudes towards compulsory vaccination and smallpox vaccination behavior. Grisons’ unique historical and institutional context – small municipalities, direct democracy, detailed records, and no involvement in World War I – provides an ideal setting to trace the persistence of health attitudes and health behavior shifts triggered by a major pandemic.

Mr. Schmid’s third project involves an estimation of the effects of school starting age (SSA) on children's mental health outcomes, such as psychotherapist visits and prescription medication usage. By using large-scale registry data from the largest Swiss health insurance and the natural experiment of school-entry cutoff date harmonization in Switzerland, he estimates the effects of absolute and relative SSA and investigate heterogeneity across socioeconomic status and prior health conditions.

Lukas D. Schmid is a Professor at the University of Lucerne. After doctoral studies at the University of Bern, Studycenter Gerzensee, and the London School of Economics and Political Science, he received his PhD from the University of Bern. Mr. Schmid looks foreword to the many opportunities for exchange and feedback in the vibrant academic environment at CES in Munich.