The effect of local growth in antidepressant consumption on mental health outcomes
Additional information
Authors
Masiero G.,
Mazzonna F.,
Steinbach S.,
Verbeek O.
Type
Working paper
Year
2019
Language
English
Abstract
Despite growing skepticism regarding the efficacy of antidepressants, global consumption is increasing at an unprecedented path with unknown implications for society. We estimate the causal effect of this increase on mental health outcomes using an IV strategy that exploits detailed drug sales data from Switzerland between 2002 and 2014. Our instrument, a modified version of the popular shift-share instrument, relies on the national growth in antidepressant sales for pharmaceutical companies (the shift) - mainly due to product innovation - and assigns it locally using regional non-antidepressant market shares. Our estimates show that an increase in antidepressants sales does not significantly affect suicide rates but cause an increase of hospital admissions for mental disorder and for depression. The causal effects prove
to be resistant to several robustness checks.
Number
2019/02
Series
IdEP Economic Papers, Università della Svizzera italiana
Keywords
Depression; antidepressant treatment; suicides; mental health
