IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_12009.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effect of Cyclones on Workers’ Mental Health

Author

Listed:
  • Cristhian D. Prieto
  • Arthur Grimes
  • Ilan Noy

Abstract

Disasters adversely affect mental well-being. However, little is known about their causal effects on diagnosed psychological disorders or the mediating role of earnings. This study uses a Synthetic Difference-in-Differences approach (SDID) to examine Cyclone Gabrielle’s impact on workers’ mental health and earnings in New Zealand. By leveraging administrative data on prescribed medications and income tax records, we find that workers residing in heavily damaged areas were more likely to be prescribed medication for treating psychological disorders than those living in similar unaffected areas. Contrary to common belief, income effects played a limited role in mediating the impact of disaster damage on mental health. Instead, physical and emotional trauma due to direct exposure emerged as key mechanisms influencing mental health outcomes. These findings underscore the critical role of non-economic factors in shaping psychological well-being following disasters triggered by natural hazards.

Suggested Citation

  • Cristhian D. Prieto & Arthur Grimes & Ilan Noy, 2025. "The Effect of Cyclones on Workers’ Mental Health," CESifo Working Paper Series 12009, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12009
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12009.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Watson, Barry & Osberg, Lars, 2019. "Can positive income anticipations reverse the mental health impacts of negative income anxieties?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 107-122.
    2. Diego Ciccia, 2024. "A Short Note on Event-Study Synthetic Difference-in-Differences Estimators," Papers 2407.09565, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2024.
    3. Tatyana Deryugina & Laura Kawano & Steven Levitt, 2018. "The Economic Impact of Hurricane Katrina on Its Victims: Evidence from Individual Tax Returns," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 10(2), pages 202-233, April.
    4. Griffith, Alan & Noonen, Thomas, 2022. "The effects of public campaign funding: Evidence from Seattle’s Democracy Voucher program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    5. Borbely, Daniel, 2022. "The impact of housing subsidy cuts on the labour market outcomes of claimants: Evidence from England," Journal of Housing Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    6. Mullins, Jamie T. & White, Corey, 2019. "Temperature and mental health: Evidence from the spectrum of mental health outcomes," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    7. King, Gary & Nielsen, Richard, 2019. "Why Propensity Scores Should Not Be Used for Matching," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 27(4), pages 435-454, October.
    8. Civelek, Yasin, 2023. "The effect of hurricanes on mental health over the long term," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    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. Frijters, Paul & Johnston, David W. & Knott, Rachel & Torgler, Benno, 2021. "Resilience to Disaster: Evidence from Daily Wellbeing Data," IZA Discussion Papers 14220, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Qiang Wen & Haiqiang Liu & Jinyuan Chen & Huiyao Ye & Zeyu Pan, 2023. "Evaluation of Satisfaction with the Built Environment of University Buildings under the Epidemic and Its Impact on Student Anxiety," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-23, February.
    3. Misty L Heggeness & Donna K Ginther & Maria I Larenas & Frances D Carter-Johnson, 2023. "Advancing biomedical science through investments in elite training," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(2), pages 1-23, February.
    4. Deepak Saraswat, 2022. "Labor Market Impacts of Exposure to Affordable Housing Supply: Evidence from the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit Program," Working papers 2022-09, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    5. Gignoux, Jérémie & Menéndez, Marta, 2016. "Benefit in the wake of disaster: Long-run effects of earthquakes on welfare in rural Indonesia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 26-44.
    6. Arne Henningsen & Guy Low & David Wuepper & Tobias Dalhaus & Hugo Storm & Dagim Belay & Stefan Hirsch, 2024. "Estimating Causal Effects with Observational Data: Guidelines for Agricultural and Applied Economists," IFRO Working Paper 2024/03, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    7. Richard Hornbeck, 2020. "Dust Bowl Migrants: Identifying an Archetype," Working Papers 2020-120, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    8. Gagliarducci, Stefano & Paserman, M. Daniele & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2019. "Hurricanes, Climate Change Policies and Electoral Accountability," IZA Discussion Papers 12334, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    9. N'dri, Lasme Mathieu & Kakinaka, Makoto, 2020. "Financial inclusion, mobile money, and individual welfare: The case of Burkina Faso," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 44(3).
    10. Christophe Loussouarn & Carine Franc & Yann Videau & Julien Mousquès, 2021. "Can General Practitioners Be More Productive? The Impact of Teamwork and Cooperation with Nurses on GP Activities," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 680-698, March.
    11. Barbara Broadway & Anna Zhu, 2023. "Spatial heterogeneity in welfare reform success," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2023n13, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    12. Bryan Roberts & Fynnwin Prager & Charles Baschnagel & Adam Rose & Brett Shears, 2021. "The economic benefits of trade facilitation: U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Centers of Excellence and Expertise programme," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(2), pages 346-366, February.
    13. Sarah Papich, 2024. "Do Democracy Vouchers help democracy?," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 42(1), pages 4-24, January.
    14. Philipp vom Berge & Achim Schmillen, 2023. "Effects of mass layoffs on local employment—evidence from geo-referenced data," Journal of International Economic Law, Oxford University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 509-539.
    15. Takahashi, Ryo, 2021. "How to stimulate environmentally friendly consumption: Evidence from a nationwide social experiment in Japan to promote eco-friendly coffee," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 186(C).
    16. Iara da Silva & Caroline Fernanda Hei Wikuats & Elizabeth Mie Hashimoto & Leila Droprinchinski Martins, 2022. "Effects of Environmental and Socioeconomic Inequalities on Health Outcomes: A Multi-Region Time-Series Study," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(24), pages 1-22, December.
    17. Karen Smith Conway & Andrea K. Menclova, 2025. "Walkability and Mental Health Resiliency During the COVID‐19 Pandemic," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(10), pages 1921-1942, October.
    18. Wang, Meng & Zhang, Shiying, 2024. "High temperatures and traffic accident crimes: Evidence from more than 470,000 offenses in China," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 55(C).
    19. Benjamin L. Collier & Cameron M. Ellis & Benjamin J. Keys, 2025. "The Cost of Consumer Collateral: Evidence From Bunching," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 93(3), pages 779-819, May.
    20. N. Zhang & H. Huang, 2018. "Assessment of world disaster severity processed by Gaussian blur based on large historical data: casualties as an evaluating indicator," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 92(1), pages 173-187, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I10 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - General
    • Q54 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Climate; Natural Disasters and their Management; Global Warming

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ces:ceswps:_12009. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.