Early Life Circumstance and Mental Health in Ghana

Achyuta Adhvaryu, James Fenske and Anant Nyshadham

No 2014-03, CSAE Working Paper Series from Centre for the Study of African Economies, University of Oxford

Abstract: We study the origins of adult mental health using early life income fluctuations. Combining a time series of real producer prices of cocoa with a nationally representative household survey in Ghana, we show that a one standard deviation rise in the cocoa price in early life decreases the likelihood of severe mental distress in adulthood by 3 percentage points (or half the mean prevalence) for cohorts born in cocoa-producing regions relative to other regions. Impacts on related personality traits are consistent with this result. Maternal nutrition, reinforcing childhood investments, and adult circumstance are operative channels of impact.

Keywords: early life; mental health; endowments; commodity prices; Ghana (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 O12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:csa:wpaper:2014-03

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