Income Shocks and Child Mortality Rates: Evidence from Fluctuations in Oil Prices

Catalina Rivero () and Pedro Acuna ()

The Economics and Finance Letters, 2021, vol. 8, issue 1, 70-81

Abstract: Previous studies show that children in lower socioeconomic status families reveal higher rates of mortality. We complement the income-mortality literature by establishing a causal link between income and child mortality. Our instrument for income is based on time-series global shocks to oil prices combined with the cross-sectional share of employment in manufacturing across US states as their exposure to oil price changes. Using the universe of death records between the years 1975-2004, we find the OLS results of income-child-mortality relationships are under-biased. The 2SLS-IV results suggest that a $1,000 increase in income per capita at the state level reduces child mortality and infant mortality by 0.87 and 0.53 fewer incidences per 1,000 population of age-specific children.

Keywords: Income; Child mortality; Infant mortality; Toddler mortality; Income inequality; oil price; Panel data; Two-Stage least square; Instrumental variable (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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