Being Born Under Adverse Economic Conditions Leads to a Higher Cardiovascular Mortality Rate Later

We connect the recent medical and economic literatures on the long-run ef-fects of early-life conditions, by analyzing the effects of economic conditions on the individual cardiovascular (CV) mortality rate later in life, using in-dividual data records from the Danish Twin Registry covering births since the 1870s and including the cause of death. To capture exogenous varia-tion of conditions early in life we use the state of the business cycle around birth. We find a significant negative effect of economic conditions early in life on the individual CV mortality rate at higher ages. There is no effect on the cancer-specific mortality rate. From variation within and between monozygotic and dizygotic twin pairs born under different conditions we conclude that the fate of an individual is more strongly determined by ge-netic and household-environmental factors if early-life conditions are poor. Individual-specific qualities come more to fruition if the starting position in life is better