Childhood Health and the Business Cycle: Evidence from Western Europe

Viola Angelini and Jochen Mierau

Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers from HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York

Abstract: We analyze the relationship between the business cycle and childhood health. We use a retrospective survey on self-reported childhood health for 10 Western European countries and combine it with historically and internationally comparable data on the Gross Domestic Product. We validate the self-reported data by comparing them to realized illness spells. We find a positive relationship between being born in and growing up during a recession and childhood health. This relationship is not driven by selection effects due to heightened infant mortality during recessions. As the business cycle is exogenous from the individual perspective, our results can be considered causal.

Keywords: Childhood Health; Business Cycle; Western Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E32 I12 O52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:yor:hectdg:12/28

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