Mortality and the business cycle: Evidence from individual and aggregated data

Gerard J. van den Berg, Ulf G. Gerdtham, Stephanie von Hinke, Maarten Lindeboom, Johannes Lissdaniels, Jan Sundquist, Kristina Sundquist

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

30 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)61-70
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Health Economics
Volume56
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2017
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Aggregation
  • Death
  • Health
  • Income
  • Recession
  • Unemployment

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