Data and Code for: Living and Dying in America: An Essay on Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism

Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s) Christopher Ruhm, University of Virginia. Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy

Version: View help for Version V1

Name	File Type	Size	Last Modified
Bridged-Race Population Estimates 1990-2018.txt	text/plain	16.3 KB	03/08/2021 09:52:AM
figures.do	text/x-stata-syntax	7.9 KB	03/08/2021 09:52:AM
figures.log	text/x-log	37.6 KB	03/04/2021 06:46:AM
pop.xlsx	application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet	15.8 KB	03/08/2021 10:06:AM
read-me.pdf	application/pdf	58.8 KB	03/08/2021 09:52:AM
tables.do	text/x-stata-syntax	15.4 KB	03/04/2021 08:42:AM
tables.log	text/x-log	50.4 KB	03/04/2021 08:46:AM
us.1990_2018.19ages.adjusted.txt	text/plain	460.9 MB	03/08/2021 01:06:PM

Project Citation:

Ruhm, Christopher. Data and Code for: Living and Dying in America: An Essay on Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism. Nashville, TN: American Economic Association [publisher], 2022. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2022-12-06. https://doi.org/10.3886/E130822V1

Project Description

Summary: This essay reviews Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism (DEATHS), by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, a fascinating account of life and death in the United States during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. While primarily targeted towards a popular audience, the volume will be of interest to many economists and other social scientists. It postulates how American capitalism run amok, combined with and partly causing the declining economic and social circumstances of less educated, has led to increased mortality from drugs, suicide, and chronic liver disease. After describing the material in DEATHS in considerable detail, I suggest a variety of research questions that need to be answered to confirm or refute Case and Deaton’s arguments and describe challenges to their key hypotheses. Among the latter are the ability of the postulated relationships to explain the sharply differing mortality trajectories of non-Hispanic whites, compared with other groups, and the timing of the observed mortality changes. Along the way, I raise doubts about the usefulness of the “deaths of despair” conceptualization, with its strong implications about causality.

Funding Sources: University of Virginia Bankard Fund

Scope of Project

Subject Terms: mortality rates; deaths of despair; drug deaths; suicide; chronic liver disease deaths

JEL Classification:
      I12 Health Behavior
      I14 Health and Inequality
      I18 Health: Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
      J11 Demographic Trends, Macroeconomic Effects, and Forecasts
      J18 Demographic Economics: Public Policy

Geographic Coverage: United States

Time Period(s): 1990 – 2018 (Annual Mortality Data)

Collection Date(s): 1990 – 2018 (Data were collected by the CDC during the relevant calendar years and then are processed and made available with a delay)

Universe: All deaths to US residents during the specified time periods.

Data Type(s): administrative records data

Collection Notes: This project uses three sources of public use data: information from death certificates on the Multiple Cause of Death files, produced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, population data from the National Cancer Institute's Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program and bridged-race population estimates also made available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Methodology

Data Source: CDC Multiple Cause of Death files, 1990-2018
CDC Bridged-Race-Population Estimates, 1990-2018
SEER Population Estimates, 1999-2018

Related Publications

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Published Versions

V1 [2022-12-06]

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DDI 2.5

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