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“Deaths of despair” over the business cycle: New estimates from a shift-share instrumental variables approach

Christopher Lowenstein

Economics & Human Biology, 2024, vol. 53, issue C

Abstract: This study presents new evidence of the effects of short-term economic fluctuations on suicide, fatal drug overdose, and alcohol-related mortality among working-age adults in the United States from 2003–2017. Using a shift-share instrumental variables approach, I find that a one percentage point increase in the aggregate employment rate decreases current-year non-drug suicides by 1.7 percent. These protective effects are concentrated among working-age men and likely reflect a combination of individual labor market experiences as well as the indirect effects of local economic growth. I find no consistent evidence that short-term business cycle changes affect drug or alcohol-related mortality. While the estimated protective effects are small relative to secular increases in suicide in recent decades, these findings are suggestive of important, short-term economic factors affecting specific causes of death and should be considered alongside the longer-term and multifaceted social, economic, and cultural determinants of America’s “despair” epidemic.

Keywords: mortality; deaths of despair; business cycle; shift-share instrument (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E24 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ehbiol:v:53:y:2024:i:c:s1570677x24000261

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101374

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