Despite growing skepticism regarding the efficacy of antidepressants, global consumption is increasing at an unprecedented path with unknown implications for society. We estimate the causal effect of this increase on mental health outcomes using an IV strategy that exploits detailed drug sales data from Switzerland between 2002 and 2014. Our instrument, a modified version of the popular...
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Antidepressant (AD) consumption has been steadily increasing in the last decade in most countries. The explanations suggested by researchers for this increment are still under scrutiny. This study attempts to identify the determinants of AD consumption by exploiting small area variations from Switzerland between 2003 and 2014. We observe that two specific drugs - Citalopram and Escitalopram -...
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This paper investigates the role of language in determining the degree of substitutability between foreign and native workers. To this end, we focus on Switzerland, an immigration-receiving country with four official languages spoken, three of which in common with bordering countries. We modify the model proposed by Ottaviano and Peri (2012) to account for the linguistic background of native...
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The aim of this paper is to assess the role of culture in shaping individual preferences to- wards different long-term care (LTC) arrangements. The analysis uses Swiss data from two administrative databases covering the universe of formal LTC providers between 2007 and 2013. Switzerland is a multi-cultural confederation where state administrative borders do not always coincide with cultural...
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Sleep deprivation is increasingly recognized as a public health challenge. While several studies provided evidence of important associations between sleep deprivation and health outcomes, it is less clear whether sleep deprivation is a cause or a marker of poor health. This paper studies the causal effects of sleep on health status and obesity exploiting the relationship between sunset light and...
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This paper evaluates the causal negative effect of environmental tobacco exposure on health by exploiting the time and geographical variation in public-place smoking bans implemented in Switzerland between 2007 and 2011. Using monthly data from the universe of Swiss hospitals between 2004 and 2012, we show that the incidence of acute myocardial infarction hospitalizations decreases by about...
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We investigate the causal effect of retirement on health and cognitive abilities by exploiting the variation between and within European countries in old age retirement rules. We show negative and significant effect of retirement on both health and cognitive abilities. We also show evidence of significant heterogeneity across occupational groups. In particular, the negative effect of...
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