It never rains but it pours: Austerity and mortality rate in peripheral areas

Calogero Guccio (), Giacomo Pignataro and Francesco Vidoli

Economics & Human Biology, 2024, vol. 54, issue C

Abstract: This study examines the impact of austerity measures on mortality rates across Italian regions from 2003 to 2018. Since 2007, regions experiencing substantial healthcare financial deficits have been required to implement recovery plans (RPs). We use a recent difference-in-differences staggered matching estimator to assess the effects of this austerity policy on municipal-level monthly mortality rates. This allows us to evaluate the policy’s spatial heterogeneity across treated municipalities, accounting for their distance from the nearest hospital. The analysis reveals a significant negative impact of austerity measures on health, particularly in peripheral areas and among vulnerable populations. Mortality rates are higher in regions under RPs, with this effect escalating with increasing distance from hospitals. The policy’s impact is also more pronounced among vulnerable populations, with differences observed between genders and across seasons.

Keywords: Austerity; Health outcomes; Mortality rate; Time-series cross-sectional; Spatial non-stationarity; Multiperiod difference-in-differences; Matching estimator (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C23 E32 I10 I18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X24000601
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: It never rains but it pours: Austerity and mortality rate in peripheral areas (2023)
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:eee:ehbiol:v:54:y:2024:i:c:s1570677x24000601

DOI: 10.1016/j.ehb.2024.101408

Access Statistics for this article

Economics & Human Biology is currently edited by J. Komlos, Inas R Kelly and Joerg Baten

More articles in Economics & Human Biology from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().