Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health

James Fenske, Achyuta Adhvaryu and Anant Nyshadham

No 698, Economics Series Working Papers from University of Oxford, Department of Economics

Abstract: We show that psychological well-being in adulthood varies substantially with circumstance in early life. Combining a time series of real producer prices of cocoa with a nationally representative household survey in Ghana, we find 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 those born in other regions. Impacts on related personality traits are consistent with this result. Maternal nutrition, reinforcing childhood investments, and adult circumstances are operative channels of impact.

Keywords: mental health; subjective well-being; early life; fetal origins; endowments; commodity prices (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I15 I31 O12 Q02 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014-02-26
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-ger, nep-hap and nep-hea
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Journal Article: Early Life Circumstance and Adult Mental Health (2019)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oxf:wpaper:698

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