Income shocks and mental health: evidence from oil royalties

This dissertation examines how revenue shocks in Brazilian municipalities affect the mental health of their population. We exploit a plausible exogeneity regarding oil royalties distribution to establish a causal relationship between resource windfalls and the number of occurrences of mental illness...

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Bibliographic Details
Author: Castro, Caio de Souza
Format: master thesis
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2020
Country:Brasil
Institution:Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV)
Repository:Repositório Institucional do FGV (FGV Repositório Digital)
Language:English
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/29283
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10438/29283
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:Oil royalties
Mental health
Income shocks
Royalties do petróleo
Saúde mental
Choques de renda
Economia
Petróleo e gás - Royalties
Brasil - Municípios
Renda pública
Description
Summary:This dissertation examines how revenue shocks in Brazilian municipalities affect the mental health of their population. We exploit a plausible exogeneity regarding oil royalties distribution to establish a causal relationship between resource windfalls and the number of occurrences of mental illness. Using within municipality variation in oil revenues, we find that receiving more oil royalties reduces both hospitalizations due to cirrhosis and ambulatory procedures related to mental health. Our results are robust to a series of exercises. Our findings suggest that one possible explanation for this is that royalties have a positive impact on local economic outcomes which is consistent with findings from the literature.