Economic Expansions Are Unhealthy: Evidence from Microdata

Ruhm, Christopher J.

doi:10.3386/w8447

Cited by 27 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Gerdtham and Ruhm (2002) find similar evidence to Ruhm (2000) in pooling data from OECD-countries. Ruhm (2001) himself has repeated his analysis on individual rather than aggregate data from the 1972-1981 US National Health Interview Surveys, 3 coming to very similar conclusions as his analysis with aggregate data. In particular, he finds that the number of medical problems, the prevalence of acute morbidities and the number of reported "bed-days" all fall in economic recessions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“Recessions lower (some) mortality rates: evidence from Germany”

Neumayer

2004

Social Science & Medicine

161

211

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In his article with the provocative title "Are Recessions Good for Your Health?", Ruhm (2000) has found robust and consistent evidence that the total mortality rate, agespecific mortality rates as well as most specific mortality causes are pro-cyclical. His finding that high unemployment rates are associated with lower mortality and vice versa stands in stark contrast to Brenner's earlier work, who found the opposite effect, possibly after a time lag. Ruhm controls for state-specific effects in a panel of US states over the period 1972 to 1991, whereas Brenner's work is based on time-series analysis.Extending and improving upon Ruhm's original analysis, we analyse the effect of state unemployment and economic growth rates on mortality in the states of Germany over the period 1980 to 2000, both in a static and a dynamic econometric model. Controlling for state-specific effects, we find evidence that aggregate mortality rates for all age groups taken together as well as most specific age groups are lower in recessions. The same is true for mortality from cardiovascular diseases, pneumonia and influenza, motor vehicle accidents and suicides, but not necessarily for other specific mortality causes. In particular, there never is a statistically significant effect on homicides, other external effects and malignant neoplasms. There are also few differences apparent between the effect on male and female mortality. If we do not control for state-specific effects, then we often arrive at the opposite result with higher unemployment being associated with higher mortality. This suggests that a failure to control for time-invariant state-specific effects leads to omitted variable bias, which would erroneously suggest that mortality rates move counter-cyclically. Overall, we can confirm Ruhm's main finding for 2 another country: recessions lower some, but not all, mortality rates in the case of Germany.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 84%

“Recessions lower (some) mortality rates: evidence from Germany”

Neumayer

2004

Social Science & Medicine

161

211

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…If α w increases, the right hand side of (10) falls and q * falls as well. Finally, an increase in α w reduces dq * /dδ in equation (11). Hence, q * is less dependent on δ as α w increases.…”

Section: Positive Analysismentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Hence under the assumption made in the proposition, there is under-reporting and hence under-investment for δ close to 1. Finally, note that q s does not depend on δ while equation (11) implies that q * is increasing in δ. Hence there exists δ * ∈ 0, 1 such that there is over(under)-investment…”

Section: Propositionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Recessions are bad for workplace safety

Boone¹,

Ours²,

Wuellrich³

et al. 2011

Journal of Health Economics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Workplace accidents are an important economic phenomenon. Yet, the pro-cyclical fluctuations in workplace accidents are not well understood. They could be related to fluctuations in effort and working hours, but workplace accidents may also be affected by reporting behavior. Our paper uses unique data on workplace accidents from an Austrian matched worker-firm dataset to study in detail how economic incentives affect workplace accidents. We find that workers who reported an accident in a particular period of time are more likely to be fired later on. And, we find support for the idea that recessions influence the reporting of moderate workplace accidents: if workers think the probability of dismissals at the firm level is high, they are less likely to report a moderate workplace accident.

show abstract

“…R Ru uh hm m ( (2 20 00 00 0) ) e es st ti im ma at te es s t th ha at t e ex xt te er rn na al l s so ou ur rc ce es s a ac cc co ou un nt t f fo or r 2 22 2 t to o 2 26 6 p pe er rc ce en nt t o of f t th he e c cy yc cl li ic ca al l f fl lu uc ct tu ua at ti io on n i in n t to ot ta al l m mo or rt ta al li it ty y. . the National Health Interview Survey and controlling for personal characteristics, fixed-effects, general time effects, and state-specific trends, a one percentage point rise in unemployment predicts a 1.5 percent fall in the prevalence of medical problems, a 3.9 percent decline in acute morbidities, and a 1.6 percent reduction in reports of "bed-days" during the prior two weeks; some chronic conditions also become less common, led by a 4.3 percent decrease in ischemic heart disease and an 8.7 percent reduction in intervertebral disk disorders (Ruhm, 2002).…”

Section: Healthy Living In Hard Timesmentioning

confidence: 99%