Excess mortality versus COVID-19 death rates: a spatial analysis of socioeconomic disparities and political allegiance across US states

Janine Aron () and John Muellbauer

INET Oxford Working Papers from Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford

Abstract: Excess mortality is a more robust measure than the counts of COVID􏰀19 deaths typically used in epidemiological and spatial studies. Measurement issues around excess mortality, considering data quality and comparability both internationally and within the U.S., are surveyed. This paper is the first state􏰀level spatial analysis of cumulative excess mortality for the U.S. in the first full year of the pandemic. There is strong evidence that, given appropriate controls, states with higher Democrat vote shares experienced lower excess mortality (consistent with county􏰀 level studies of COVID􏰀19 deaths). Important demographic and socio􏰀economic controls from a broad set tested were racial composition, age structure, population density, poverty, income, temperature, and timing of arrival of the pandemic. Interaction effects suggest the Democrat vote share effect of reducing mortality was even greater in states where the pandemic arrived early. Omitting political allegiance leads to a significant underestimation of the mortality disparities for minority populations.

Keywords: Excess Mortality; COVID-19; Spatial Analysis; US States; Political Polarization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I14 I18 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2021-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age, nep-geo and nep-ure
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.inet.ox.ac.uk/files/send-9-Dec-21-Aron ... ity-paper-finalr.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Excess Mortality Versus COVID‐19 Death Rates: A Spatial Analysis of Socioeconomic Disparities and Political Allegiance Across U.S. States (2022)
Working Paper: Excess mortality versus COVID-19 death rates: a spatial analysis of socioeconomic disparities and political allegiance across US states (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:amz:wpaper:2021-24

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in INET Oxford Working Papers from Institute for New Economic Thinking at the Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by INET Oxford admin team ().