Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/227254 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 13727
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
Despite the growing skepticism regarding the efficacy of antidepressants, global consumption has increased at an unprecedented rate with unknown implications for society. We estimate the causal effect of this increase on mental health outcomes using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits pharmaceutical company local market power and the availability of detailed drug sales data from Switzerland between 2002 and 2014. Our main instrument, a modified version of the popular shift-share instrument, relies on the national growth in antidepressant sales for pharmaceutical companies (the shift) – mainly due to product innovation – and assigns it locally using regional non-antidepressant market shares. Our estimates show that an increase in antidepressant sales causes a sharp increase of hospital admissions related to depression symptoms. An alternative instrument, which exploits prescribing practice spillovers from neighboring countries, leads to very similar point estimates providing further evidence about the validity of our results.
Subjects: 
depression
antidepressant treatment
suicides
mental health
JEL: 
I12
I18
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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