MPC Member Publications

This database contains a listing of population studies publications written by MPC Members. Anyone can add a publication by an MPC student, faculty, or staff member to this database; new citations will be reviewed and approved by MPC administrators.

Full Citation

Title: Commodity Prices and Mortality *

Citation Type: Journal Article

Publication Year: 2024

Abstract: The US Midwest, which is home to over 20 percent of Americans, is heavily dependent on the primary sector of the economy, especially agriculture. We look at the relationship between commodity prices-corn and soybean prices, the dominant commodities in the Midwest-and mortality in a sample of 485 Midwestern counties for the period 1980 to 2016. As outcome variables, we look at crude or age-adjusted all-cause death rates. Because commodity prices are only available at the state or global level, we interact (i) state-level or global commodity prices with (ii) how much of each commodity is grown within each county. Our treatment variable thus captures how, for each commodity, revenues from that commodity within a given county change in response to changes in commodity prices. For identification, we combine the exposure design just described with a two-way, county and year fixed effects design as well as with a number of robust panel data estimators. On average, we find that a decrease in commodity prices is associated with increased mortality across all counties: A 10-percent decrease in either corn or soybean revenues is associated with an increase in the crude death rate of about 0.2 percent, or 0.205 additional deaths per 1,000 persons in a county. This result appears driven by rural counties and by corn price shocks. For robustness, we also estimate specifications in which we instrument revenues from each commodity with measures of drought severity, and we conduct falsification tests. Finally, we show that the relationship between commodity prices and rural mortality appears driven by cardiovascular disease and by suicides.

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Authors: Bellemare, Marc F; Liu, Jhih-Yun; Hadrich, Joleen

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