IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/reveho/v21y2023i4d10.1007_s11150-022-09629-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mortality shocks and household consumption: the case of Mexico

Author

Listed:
  • Marek Šedivý

    (Charles University)

Abstract

We study the effect of within-household mortality on the evolution of household per capita consumption. Relying on a panel survey of Mexican households, we find that these households were capable of perfectly smoothing the shock into their consumption caused by the death of a household member. Our findings indicate that a household’s ability to smooth consumption depends neither on the characteristics of the deceased household member nor on the income of a particular household. We find no clear temporal pattern in the evolution of the shock caused by within-household mortality. Our results provide strong support for the hypothesis that the evolution of household consumption is not affected by within-household mortality.

Suggested Citation

  • Marek Šedivý, 2023. "Mortality shocks and household consumption: the case of Mexico," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 21(4), pages 1289-1358, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:21:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11150-022-09629-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-022-09629-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11150-022-09629-3
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11150-022-09629-3?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Kadiyala, Suneetha & Rogers, Beatrice & Quisumbing, Agnes & Webb, Patrick, 2011. "The effect of prime age adult mortality on household composition and consumption in rural Ethiopia," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 647-655.
    2. Ardington, Cally & Bärnighausen, Till & Case, Anne & Menendez, Alicia, 2014. "The economic consequences of AIDS mortality in South Africa," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 48-60.
    3. Stefan Dercon & Pramila Krishnan, 2000. "In Sickness and in Health: Risk Sharing within Households in Rural Ethiopia," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(4), pages 688-727, August.
    4. Adelaido García-Andrés & Jose N. Martinez & Ernesto Aguayo-Téllez, 2021. "Leaving the Nest or Living with Parents: Evidence from Mexico’s Young Adult Population," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 913-933, September.
    5. Beegle, Kathleen, 2005. "Labor Effects of Adult Mortality in Tanzanian Households," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(3), pages 655-683, April.
    6. Robert M. Townsend, 1995. "Consumption Insurance: An Evaluation of Risk-Bearing Systems in Low-Income Economies," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 83-102, Summer.
    7. van Buuren, Stef & Groothuis-Oudshoorn, Karin, 2011. "mice: Multivariate Imputation by Chained Equations in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 45(i03).
    8. Stefan Dercon & John Hoddinott & Tassew Woldehanna, 2005. "Shocks and Consumption in 15 Ethiopian Villages, 1999--2004," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 14(4), pages 559-585, December.
    9. Jungho Kim & Alexia Prskawetz, 2010. "External Shocks, Household Consumption and Fertility in Indonesia," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 29(4), pages 503-526, August.
    10. Rasmus Heltberg & Niels Lund, 2009. "Shocks, Coping, and Outcomes for Pakistan's Poor: Health Risks Predominate," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(6), pages 889-910.
    11. Martin Ravallion & Shubham Chaudhuri, 1997. "Risk and Insurance in Village India: Comment," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 65(1), pages 171-184, January.
    12. Ambrosius, Christian & Cuecuecha, Alfredo, 2013. "Are Remittances a Substitute for Credit? Carrying the Financial Burden of Health Shocks in National and Transnational Households," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 143-152.
    13. Catalina Amuedo-Dorantes & Susan Pozo, 2011. "New evidence on the role of remittances on healthcare expenditures by Mexican households," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 9(1), pages 69-98, March.
    14. François Cohen & Antoine Dechezleprêtre, 2022. "Mortality, Temperature, and Public Health Provision: Evidence from Mexico," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(2), pages 161-192, May.
    15. Kathleen Beegle & Joachim De Weerdt & Stefan Dercon, 2008. "Adult Mortality and Consumption Growth in the Age of HIV/AIDS," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(2), pages 299-326, January.
    16. Brown, Caitlin & Calvi, Rossella & Penglase, Jacob, 2021. "Sharing the pie: An analysis of undernutrition and individual consumption in Bangladesh," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    17. Michael Grimm, 2010. "Mortality Shocks and Survivors’ Consumption Growth," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(2), pages 146-171, April.
    18. Jonathan Morduch, 1995. "Income Smoothing and Consumption Smoothing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 103-114, Summer.
    19. Khan, Farid & Bedi, Arjun S. & Sparrow, Robert, 2015. "Sickness and Death: Economic Consequences and Coping Strategies of the Urban Poor in Bangladesh," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 255-266.
    20. Caitlin Brown & Martin Ravallion & Dominique van de Walle, 2019. "Most of Africa's Nutritionally Deprived Women and Children are Not Found in Poor Households," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 101(4), pages 631-644, October.
    21. Audrey Au Yong Lyn, 2021. "Male employment and female intra-household decision-making: a Mexican gold mining case study," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 19(3), pages 699-737, September.
    22. Cochrane, John H, 1991. "A Simple Test of Consumption Insurance," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 99(5), pages 957-976, October.
    23. Alem, Yonas & Söderbom, Måns, 2012. "Household-Level Consumption in Urban Ethiopia: The Effects of a Large Food Price Shock," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 146-162.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Alem, Yonas & Tato, Gidisa Lachisa, 2023. "Shocks and mental health: Panel data evidence from South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    2. Islam, Asadul & Maitra, Pushkar, 2012. "Health shocks and consumption smoothing in rural households: Does microcredit have a role to play?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(2), pages 232-243.
    3. Dubois, Pierre, 2002. "Consommation, partage de risque et assurance informelle : développements théoriques et tests empiriques récents," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 78(1), pages 115-149, Mars.
    4. Paul Gertler & David I. Levine & Enrico Moretti, 2009. "Do microfinance programs help families insure consumption against illness?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(3), pages 257-273, March.
    5. Hasna Khemili & Mounir Belloumi, 2018. "Social Security and Fighting Poverty in Tunisia," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(1), pages 1-17, February.
    6. Somville, Vincent & Vandewalle, Lore, 2023. "Access to banking, savings and consumption smoothing in rural India," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 223(C).
    7. Irac, D. & Minoiu, C., 2006. "Risk Insurance in a Transition Economy: Evidence from Rural Romania," Working papers 154, Banque de France.
    8. Jalan, Jyotsna & Ravallion, Martin, 1999. "Are the poor less well insured? Evidence on vulnerability to income risk in rural China," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 61-81, February.
    9. Delphine M. Irac & Camelia Minoiu, 2007. "Risk insurance in a transition economy," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 15(1), pages 153-173, January.
    10. Yang, Yang & Jiang, Jialing & Yin, Zhichao, 2021. "Social networks, shocks, and household consumption in China," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 111-122.
    11. Skoufias, Emmanuel & Quisumbing, Agnes R., 2004. "Consumption insurance and vulnerability to poverty : a synthesis of the evidence from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Mali, Mexico and Russia," Social Protection Discussion Papers and Notes 29141, The World Bank.
    12. De Weerdt, Joachim & Dercon, Stefan, 2006. "Risk-sharing networks and insurance against illness," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 337-356, December.
    13. De Weerdt, Joachim & Dercon, Stefan, 2006. "Risk-sharing networks and insurance against illness," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(2), pages 337-356, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Consumption; Consumption smoothing; Death; Mortality;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D12 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Consumer Economics: Empirical Analysis
    • D15 - Microeconomics - - Household Behavior - - - Intertemporal Household Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving
    • I15 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health and Economic Development
    • O12 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Microeconomic Analyses of Economic Development

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:21:y:2023:i:4:d:10.1007_s11150-022-09629-3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.