Credit market conditions and mental health
Research offers conflicting predictions about the impact of credit conditions on mental health. We first assess how bank regulatory reforms that improved credit conditions, e.g., by enhancing the efficiency of credit allocation and lowering lending rates, impacted mental health. We discover that among low-income individuals, these regulatory reforms reduced mental depression, boosted labor market outcomes, eased access to mortgage debt, and reduced the ranks of the “unbanked.” We also find that mergers of large regional banks that led to branch closures and tighter credit constraints in affected counties harmed the mental health of lower-income individuals in treated counties.
Date and time:
Thursday 14 December 2023, 16:30
Speaker(s):
Ross Levine (Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford - National Bureau of Economic Research)
Venue:
Online
Entrance fee:
free