The effects of financial crises on mortality and health in Europe

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of financial crises on health in the EU. Using a fixed effects approach, we study panel data on financial crises, unemployment rates, mortality and other health indicators for 28 EU countries during the period 1992-2014. We find that financial crises increase mortality by 1.3 % once time trends are controlled for. This effect appears to be largely driven by an increase in deaths from cardiovascular diseases. Estimated effects of macroeconomic conditions, proxied for by unemployment rates, are in line with existing literature and indicate that unemployment decreases mortality. Unemployment is also found to have a negative effect on several categories of incidence and disability-adjusted life years, while no such robust, significant effects of financial crises are found. Effects of crises on all-cause mortality are more pronounced in countries with low public healthcare spending and results are overall robust to a number of changes in specification. The main conclusion is that crises increase mortality. We also conclude that economic fluctuations do affect aspects of health other than mortality, but there is no evidence of financial crises having an additional effect.