On 24th and 25th of June 2019, the second Essen Economics of Mental Health Workshop took place addressing the topic of ‘Mental Health over the Life-Course’. Like last year, the workshop was organized by Ansgar Wübker and Christoph Kronenberg.
Two keynote presentations and 13 paper presentations covered a wide variety of topics concerning the economics of mental health and were thoroughly discussed by 18 participants. The group was a well-rounded mix of junior researchers as well as senior researchers.
The workshop started with a keynote given by Christopher J. Ruhm about mortality trends in the US. He compared mortality trends between 2001 and 2017 for different groups (SES status, gender, age groups, and race/ethnicity) and found that mortality trends differ greatly between groups. In contrast to previous papers, he showed that mortality rate increases were mainly driven by younger age groups. He aims to advance the research by looking at different causes of death.
At the end of the workshop, the second keynote was given by Fabrizio Mazzonna who talked about cognitive decline. He showed that people who experience cognitive decline, but are not aware of it, are much more likely to experience wealth losses, especially in terms of financial wealth. Since those losses are not found among people without cognitive decline or among people that are aware of their cognitive decline, overestimation might play an important role.
In between the keynote sessions, we discussed the work of the participants using a relatively new workshop format compared to the usual workshop procedures in German academia. Each paper was presented by the discussant instead of the author, who then in turn only clarifies or responds. The presentation is followed by questions and discussion from all participants. Since all papers were shared in the group before the workshop, everybody could contribute, which led to thorough and fruitful discussions.
The presentations covered a wide range of topics concerning the economics of mental health. For example, Jakob Everding discussed the work of Michael Shields and his co-authors. They examined how changes of commodity prices translate into job security among Australian miners and how this consequently affects their mental health. Anwen Zhang’s work was discussed by Daniel Kamhöfer. He analyzed whether the mental health of students is influenced by the mental health of their peers in class.
The first day ended with a dinner at Ponistra, a restaurant in Essen that specializes in organic food. The food was not just healthy, but also very delicious and there was enough time for conversations about economics and beyond.
After two days of presentations and discussions, we were all exhausted, but had gained good input on our papers and learned a great deal about the economics of mental health.
Credits
