Mortality and the Business Cycle : Evidence from Individual and Aggregated Data

Summary, in English

There has been much interest recently in the relationship between economic conditions and mortality, with some studies showing that mortality is pro-cyclical, while others find the opposite. Some suggest that the aggregation level of analysis (e.g. individual vs. regional) matters. We use both individual and aggregated data on a sample of 20-64 year-old Swedish men from 1993 to 2007. Our results show that the association between the business cycle and mortality does not depend on the level of analysis: the sign and magnitude of the parameter estimates are similar at the individual level and the aggregate (county) level; both showing pro-cyclical mortality.

• Author: Gerard van den Berg; Ulf Gerdtham; Stephanie von Hinke; Maarten Lindeboom; JOHANNES LISSDANIELS; Jan Sundquist; Kristina Sundquist
• Department/s: Department of Economics; Health Economics; Centre for Economic Demography; Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology; Family Medicine, Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Lifestyle; EpiHealth: Epidemiology for Health
• Publishing year: 2017
• Language: English
• Publication/Series: Working Papers
• Issue: 2017:5
• Links: http://swopec.hhs.se/lunewp/abs/lunewp2017_005.htm
• Document type: Working paper
• Publisher: Department of Economics, Lund University
• Topic: Economics
• Keywords: Mortality; Recessions; Business Cycle; Health; Unemployment; Income; E03; I10; I12
• Status: Published
• Research group: Health Economics; Family Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology; Family Medicine, Cardiovascular Epidemiology and Lifestyle