IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/not/notcfc/11-10.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Debt and Depression: Evidence on Casual Links and Social Stigma Effects

Author

Listed:
  • John Gathergood

Abstract

Using individual-level panel data, this paper examines the relationship between problem debt and psychological health. Individuals exhibiting problem debt, by either subjective or objective measures, also exhibit much worse psychological health, by either subjective or objective measures. However, selection into problem debt on the basis of poor psychological health accounts for much of this difference. The causality between problem debt and psychological health may be two-way. Local house price movements exogenous to individual households are used to establish the causality from problem mortgage debt to psychological health. In addition, the social stigmas effects of problem debt are investigated using local bankruptcy and repossession rates as indicators of the local prevalence of problem debt in a reference group population. Results indicate there is a sizeable causal link between problem debt and psychological health and that reference group effects are also significant in magnitude.

Suggested Citation

  • John Gathergood, 2011. "Debt and Depression: Evidence on Casual Links and Social Stigma Effects," Discussion Papers 11/10, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    • Handle: RePEc:not:notcfc:11/10
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/cfcm/documents/papers/11-10.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Assar Lindbeck & Sten Nyberg & Jörgen W. Weibull, 1999. "Social Norms and Economic Incentives in the Welfare State," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 114(1), pages 1-35.
    2. Andrew E. Clark, 2003. "Unemployment as a Social Norm: Psychological Evidence from Panel Data," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 21(2), pages 289-322, April.
    3. Brown, Sarah & Taylor, Karl & Wheatley Price, Stephen, 2005. "Debt and distress: Evaluating the psychological cost of credit," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 26(5), pages 642-663, October.
    4. Bridges, Sarah & Disney, Richard, 2010. "Debt and depression," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 388-403, May.
    5. Andrew Benito, 2009. "Who Withdraws Housing Equity and Why?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 76(301), pages 51-70, February.
    6. Pamela Lenton & Paul Mosley, 2008. "Debt and Health," Working Papers 2008004, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2008.
    7. Gardner, Jonathan & Oswald, Andrew J., 2007. "Money and mental wellbeing: A longitudinal study of medium-sized lottery wins," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 49-60, January.
    8. Vivian H. Hamilton & Philip Merrigan & Éric Dufresne, 1997. "Down and out: estimating the relationship between mental health and unemployment," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 6(4), pages 397-406, July.
    9. Reading, Richard & Reynolds, Shirley, 2001. "Debt, social disadvantage and maternal depression," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 441-453, August.
    10. Bartel, Ann & Taubman, Paul, 1986. "Some Economic and Demographic Consequences of Mental Illness," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 4(2), pages 243-256, April.
    11. Frijters, Paul & Haisken-DeNew, John P. & Shields, Michael A., 2005. "The causal effect of income on health: Evidence from German reunification," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 997-1017, September.
    12. Wildman, John, 2003. "Income related inequalities in mental health in Great Britain: analysing the causes of health inequality over time," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 295-312, March.
    13. Lea, Stephen E. G. & Webley, Paul & Walker, Catherine M., 1995. "Psychological factors in consumer debt: Money management, economic socialization, and credit use," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 681-701, December.
    14. Frijters, Paul & Haisken-DeNew, John P. & Shields, Michael A., 2005. "The causal effect of income on health: Evidence from German reunification," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(5), pages 997-1017, September.
    15. Binder, M. & Pesaran, M. H., 1998. "Optimal Consumption Decisions under Social Interactions," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9805, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bridges, Sarah & Disney, Richard, 2010. "Debt and depression," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3), pages 388-403, May.
    2. Matthias Keese & Hendrik Schmitz, 2014. "Broke, Ill, and Obese: Is There an Effect of Household Debt on Health?," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 60(3), pages 525-541, September.
    3. Yanhong Gong & Xiulan Zhang & Hong Zou & Donghua Tian & Zhiyong Qu & Weijun Zhang & Yongqiang Chu, 2014. "Debt and depression among the Dibao population in northwestern China," International Journal of Social Psychiatry, , vol. 60(7), pages 637-645, November.
    4. Benedicte Apouey & Andrew E. Clark, 2015. "Winning Big but Feeling no Better? The Effect of Lottery Prizes on Physical and Mental Health," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(5), pages 516-538, May.
    5. repec:zbw:rwirep:0234 is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Munford, Luke A. & Fichera, Eleonora & Sutton, Matt, 2020. "Is owning your home good for your health? Evidence from exogenous variations in subsidies in England," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 39(C).
    7. Deter, Max & Lange, Martin, 2023. "Are the supporters of socialism the losers of capitalism? Conformism in East Germany and transition success," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    8. Cesar Leandro, Julio & Botelho, Delane, 2022. "Consumer over-indebtedness: A review and future research agenda," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 535-551.
    9. Daniel Gray, 2014. "Financial Concerns and Overall Life Satisfaction: A Joint Modelling Approach," Working Papers 2014008, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    10. John Gathergood, 2013. "An Instrumental Variable Approach To Unemployment, Psychological Health And Social Norm Effects," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(6), pages 643-654, June.
    11. Pamela Lenton & Paul Mosley, 2008. "Debt and Health," Working Papers 2008004, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics, revised Apr 2008.
    12. Patryk Babiarz & Tansel Yilmazer, 2017. "The impact of adverse health events on consumption: Understanding the mediating effect of income transfers, wealth, and health insurance," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(12), pages 1743-1758, December.
    13. Max Deter, 2020. "Are the Losers of Communism the Winners of Capitalism? The Effects of Conformism in the GDR on Transition Success," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 1102, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    14. Matthias Keese & Hendrik Schmitz, 2010. "Broke, Ill, and Obese: The Effect of Household Debt on Health," Ruhr Economic Papers 0234, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
    15. Elena Lagomarsino & Alessandro Spiganti, 2020. "No gain in pain: psychological well-being, participation, and wages in the BHPS," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 21(9), pages 1375-1389, December.
    16. Keese, Matthias & Schmitz, Hendrik, 2010. "Broke, Ill, and Obese: The Effect of Household Debt on Health," Ruhr Economic Papers 234, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    17. Brown, Sarah & Harris, Mark N. & Srivastava, Preety & Taylor, Karl, 2018. "Mental Health and Reporting Bias: Analysis of the GHQ-12," IZA Discussion Papers 11771, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    18. Blanchflower, David G. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 66(8), pages 1733-1749, April.
    19. Jones, Andrew M. & Wildman, John, 2008. "Health, income and relative deprivation: Evidence from the BHPS," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 308-324, March.
    20. Jérôme Ronchetti & Anthony Terriau, 2019. "Impact of unemployment on self-perceived health," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 20(6), pages 879-889, August.
    21. Chen, Xi & Wang, Tianyu & Busch, Susan H., 2019. "Does money relieve depression? Evidence from social pension expansions in China," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 411-420.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:not:notcfc:11/10. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Hilary Hughes (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfnotuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.