We analyze whether field of study assigned at age 16 impacts mental health in adulthood. Using a regression discontinuity design that exploits GPA cut-offs, we find that admission to the preferred study field improves mental health, lowering both the incidence of antidepressant prescriptions and...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) requires group health plans that offer dependent coverage to make that coverage available to workers’ children until they reach age 26, regardless of student status, marital status, or financial support by the employees. A number of...

I augment the standard rational addiction model to include an insurance component whereby the effects of addiction can be mitigated. The model implies that increasing the level of insurance in the future induces a forward-looking individual to consume more of a harmfully addictive good...

We include insurance for addiction treatment in the standard rational addiction model and show that an increase in the level of insurance for addiction treatment induces a forward-looking individual to consume more of a harmfully addictive good currently. We test this implication using...

Self-assessed health (SAH) is a frequently used measure of individuals’ health status. It is also prone to reporting heterogeneity. To control for reporting heterogeneity valid measures of the objective health status are needed. The topic becomes even more complex for cross-country...

This paper seeks to assess how economic fluctuations, measured by changes in the regional unemployment rate, affect mental health of individuals who are currently active in the labor market. We use the UK's 1997-2010 Labour Force Survey to show whether people are more likely to report suffering...

Major transformations in forms of governance of the liberal state have been wrought over the course of the last century, including the rise of neoliberalism and 'new public management'. Mental health too has witnessed change, with pharmacological treatment displacing residential care, a shift to...

In this paper we present an instrumental variables estimate of the effect of obesity on depression in females. Previous research has established a significant correlation between the two. The direction of causality, however, is unclear. We use employment data from the ES202 program and prices...

Rationale: Previous studies document that children's mental health problems cause substantial stress and burden to families. However, family burden instruments do not typically provide quantitative estimates of family costs. Few studies have attempted to measure family costs, particularly time...

I explore the short term effects of mental health symptoms on employment outcomes. To address potential simultaneity bias, I propose a new instrument related to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) that depends only on latitude and day of year. For unmarried individuals, an additional day of poor...