Commentary: Mortality increases during economic upturns

Abstract

The conventional wisdom is that mortality falls when the economy temporarily improves and increases when it weakens. This strong apriori belief has engendered substantial attention to be paid to analyses indicating a countercyclical variation in deaths and excessive scepticism to countervailing evidence. However, this view is beginning to change as recent research, often using more sophisticated methodological designs than earlier studies, commonly finds that fatalities rise during economic upturns. ‘Increasing Mortality During Expansions of the US Economy, 1900–1996’ by José Tapia Granados¹ contributes to this new understanding by showing that the secular decline in US mortality accelerates during economic recessions and slows or reverses in expansions. His analysis utilizes time-series data on total deaths, as well as age-specific and cause-specific mortality.