TY  - EJOU
AU  - 
T1  - Income Shocks and Child Mortality Rates: Evidence from Fluctuations in Oil Prices
T2  - The Economics and Finance Letters

PY  - 2021
VL  - 8
IS  - 1
SN  - 2312-430X

AB  - 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.
KW  - Income
KW  - Child mortality
KW  - Infant mortality
KW  - Toddler mortality
KW  - Income inequality
KW  - oil price
KW  - Panel data
KW  - Two-Stage least square
KW  - Instrumental variable.
DO  - 10.18488/journal.29.2021.81.70.81