Abstract
The debate on the impact of economic conditions on health has been recently amplified by the drug crisis in the US attributed by some to “deaths of despair.” There is little understanding of the magnitude of the impact of economic conditions on health and the reasons why it varies across socioeconomic groups and geographical areas. We show that housing is an important unexplored driver that explains these differences. We exploit the fact that households that overvalue (undervalue) their houses experience an unexpected negative (positive) shock in their housing wealth when they sell their houses. We find that a one standard deviation positive shock in housing wealth increases the probability of an improvement in self-reported health by 1.13 percentage points and decreases the drug-related mortality rate by 0.27. We exploit the geographical variation in unexpected housing wealth shocks and find that households who live in MSAs with more inelastic housing supply experience larger changes in health outcomes.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
