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Does the Lunar Cycle Affect Birth and Deaths?

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Author Info
Joshua S. Gans
Andrew Leigh

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Abstract

There is a commonplace notion that full moons affect natality and mortality. To test this theory, we obtain daily births and deaths data from Australia, covering all 10,592 days from 1 January 1975 to 31 December 2003. We find that full moons are not associated with any significant change in the number of conceptions, births, or deaths. Moreover, our standard errors are sufficiently tight to make it possible to rule out even modest positive or negative effects of the lunar cycle.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Centre for Economic Policy Research, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University in its series CEPR Discussion Papers with number 532.

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Date of creation: Aug 2006
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Handle: RePEc:auu:dpaper:532

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Related research
Keywords: conceptions; births; deaths; timing; lunar cycle; full moon;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

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This page was last updated on 2009-12-3.

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