Depression for Economists / Jonathan de Quidt, Johannes Haushofer.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

de Quidt, Jonathan.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Haushofer, Johannes.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w22973.

NBER working paper series no. w22973

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2016.

Summary:

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is one of the most prevalent mental illnesses worldwide. Existing evidence suggests that it has both economic causes and consequences, such as unemployment. However, depression has not received significant attention in the economics literature. In this paper, we present a simple model which predicts the core symptoms of depression from economic primitives, i.e. beliefs. Specifically, we show that when exogenous shocks cause an agent to have pessimistic beliefs about the returns to her effort, this agent will exhibit depressive symptoms such undereating or overeating, insomnia or hypersomnia, and a decrease in labor supply. When these effects are strong enough, they can generate a poverty trap. We present descriptive evidence that illustrates the predicted relationships.

Notes:

Print version record

December 2016.