A City-Level Analysis of Mortality and the Business Cycle across Racial and Ethnic Groups

Fidel Gonzalez, Troy Quast () and Matías Fontenla
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Troy Quast: Sam Houston State University

Economics Bulletin, 2012, vol. 32, issue 3, 2511-2521

Abstract: This paper employs U.S. metropolitan data to investigate the relationship between mortality rate and the business cycle. We utilize mortality and employment data that are specific to a given city, year and race/ethnic group. The analysis improves upon the existing literature by analyzing the relationship for specific racial and ethnic groups and by allowing the relationship to vary according to the level of economic activity in that metropolitan area. We find that while overall mortality is procyclical at the median value of the employment rate, it is countercyclical at lower values and more strongly procyclical at higher values. Our estimates also suggest that while this pattern is present for whites and Hispanics, there is no discernible relationship between mortality and the employment rate for blacks. Our analysis of specific causes of death suggest additional differences across racial and ethnic groups

Keywords: Business Cycle; Mortality; Race; Ethnicity; MSA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I1 R0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-09-09
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