Quantifying the mortality impact of Il Piano Marshall.

The article examines the direct impact of the Marshall Plan, officially known as the European Recovery Program (ERP), on public health outcomes in post-World War II Italy, focusing on mortality rates across Italian provinces. Using detailed provincial-level data, the study finds that each additional million dollars of ERP aid corresponded to a reduction of one to two deaths per 1,000 people, primarily driven by in-kind grants of food and drugs rather than reconstruction funds. The mortality decline was most pronounced in deaths from infectious and communicable diseases, with robust results confirmed through multiple statistical methods including difference-in-differences, coarsened exact matching, and a border-municipal research design. These findings suggest that the ERP’s health-related aid was a deliberate and effective component of postwar recovery, complementing its well-documented economic and institutional contributions.