Depression and Substance Abuse: A Rationalization of a Vicious Circle

Amnon Levy and João Ricardo Faria
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João Ricardo Faria: University of Texas Pan American, http://business.uow.edu.au/econ/who/index.html

Economics Working Papers from School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia

Abstract: While a mind-altering-substance consumption alleviates current level of depression, it facilitates future depression. Our analysis incorporates this trade off and shows that the stationary state of a consistently overly ambitious sophisticated substance user is improved by impatience, and that this improvement is amplified by the ratio of the instantaneous depression-relief effect to the state-degradation effect of the substance. The analysis also shows that the existence of a supportive personal community leads to permanent cyclical substance consumption when the user is relatively patient.

Keywords: Substance abuse; ambition; consistency; sophistication; impatience; state-maturation; state-degradation; depression; relief; community support; cycles (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D91 I12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 23 pages
Date: 2006
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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