Bounding the causal effect of unemployment on mental health: Nonparametric evidence from four countries
利用非参数边界分析，在澳大利亚、德国、英国和美国四个制度不同的国家，发现失业对心理健康有显著的负面影响，且效应在短期失业中已显现，建议政策应关注失业者心理健康的早期预防。
An important, yet unsettled, question in public health policy is the extent to which unemployment causally impacts mental health. The recent literature yields varying findings, which are likely due to differences in data, methods, samples, and institutional settings. Taking a more general approach, we provide comparable evidence for four countries with different institutional settings-Australia, Germany, the UK, and the United States-using a nonparametric bounds analysis. Relying on fairly weak and partially testable assumptions, our paper shows that unemployment has a significant negative effect on mental health in all countries. Our results rule out effects larger than a quarter of a standard deviation for Germany and half a standard deviation for the Anglo-Saxon countries. The effect is significant for both men and women and materialises already for short periods of unemployment. Public policy should hence focus on early prevention of mental health problems among the unemployed.