Healthy mind in healthy body: Identifying the causal effect of mental health on physical health

Liyuan Yang and Vasileios Zikos

Economics Letters, 2022, vol. 213, issue C

Abstract: This paper examines whether mental health has a causal impact on physical health. Allowing for individual-level fixed effects, our study aims to overcome some of the main technical difficulties encountered in the literature: two-way causality, unobservable confounders, and measurement error. For identification we implement an instrumental variable approach that exploits the recent death of a close friend as a source of exogenous variation in mental health. Using large-scale panel data from Australia, we find robust evidence that mental health has a positive, causal effect on physical health.

Keywords: Mental health; Physical health; Panel data; HILDA (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D01 I10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:213:y:2022:i:c:s0165176522000489

DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2022.110358

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