 United States of Mind under UncertaintySiye Bae, Soojin Jo and Myungkyu Shim Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 2023, vol. 213, issue C, 102-127 Abstract: This paper investigates if heightened economic uncertainty raises concerns about mental health in the U.S. We first quantify such concerns by constructing a composite Mental Health Concerns index, using time series of the intensity of Google search queries related to mental disorders and distress. This index i) rises significantly during the three recessionary episodes and ii) comoves negatively with survey responses that reflect views on current consumer sentiment or on future economic conditions. We find that the concerns regarding mental health substantially increase after an unexpected hike in economic uncertainty; uncertainty not only channels through its negative impacts on economic activity, but also directly affects the level of concerns. Our findings suggest that an uncertainty shock can have a far-reaching impact on overall welfare of economic agents by leaving them more concerned about mental health. Keywords: Uncertainty; Mental health concerns index; VAR; Google trends (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jeborg:v:213:y:2023:i:c:p:102-127 DOI: 10.1016/j.jebo.2023.07.013 Access Statistics for this article Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization is currently edited by Houser, D. and Puzzello, D. More articles in Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization from Elsevier |
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