Health status and the Great Recession. Evidence from electronic health records
利用意大利电子健康记录数据，研究2008年大衰退对慢性病发病率的影响，发现经济衰退对心血管疾病有长期负面效应，对抑郁有暂时影响，且效应随年龄和性别而异。
We investigate the impact of the Great Recession in Italy on the incidence of chronic diseases using new individual longitudinal data from Electronic Health Records. We exploit the exogenous shock in the economic conditions occurred in 2008 to estimate heterogeneous effects of an unprecedented rise in local unemployment rates in an individual fixed-effects model. Our results document that harsh economic downturns have a negative long-lasting effect on cardiovascular disease and a temporary effect on depression. This effect is heterogeneous across gender, increases with age and is stronger right before the retirement age. An important policy recommendation emerging from this study is that prolonged economic downturns constitute an additional external risk for individual health and not a temporary benefit.