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.
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Paper provided by School of Economics, University of Wollongong, NSW, Australia in its series Economics Working Papers with number
wp06-16.
Find related papers by JEL classification: D91 - Microeconomics - - Intertemporal Choice and Growth - - - Intertemporal Consumer Choice; Life Cycle Models and Saving I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Production
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