Mentally Spent: Credit Conditions and Mental Health / Qing Hu, Ross Levine, Chen Lin, Mingzhu Tai.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hu, Qing.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Levine, Ross.

Lin, Chen.

Tai, Mingzhu.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w25584.

NBER working paper series no. w25584

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Mentally Spent

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2019.

Summary:

In light of the human suffering and economic costs associated with mental illness, we provide the first assessment of whether local credit conditions shape the incidence of mental depression. Using several empirical strategies, we discover that bank regulatory reforms that improved local credit conditions reduced mental depression among low-income households and the impact was largest in counties dominated by bank-dependent firms. On the mechanisms, we find that the regulatory reforms boosted employment, income, and mental health among low-income individuals in bank-dependent counties, but the regulatory reforms did not increase borrowing by these individuals.

Notes:

Print version record

February 2019.