Consumer Sentiment in the United States and the Impact of Mental Disorders on Consumer Behavior—Time Trends and Persistence Analysis

Abstract

This paper analyzes the stochastic properties in clinical disorders to understand how they have manifested in consumer sentiment in the USA since 1990. The results obtained via fractional integration methodologies exhibit a high degree of persistence, finding non-mean reversion behavior in all of the time series analyzed, except for depressive disorder. Using a causality test, we find that mental and substance use disorders, anxiety disorder, schizophrenia, and alcohol use disorder influence consumer sentiment. Focusing on the cointegrating part, we conclude that an increase in the previously cited mental disorders produces a decrease in the Consumer Sentiment Index.