GUI2DE Seminar: Sonia Bhalotra
Sonia Bhalotra, Univ. of Warwick
joint with Meltem Daysal, Mircea Trandafir, and Nis Vestergård Lydiksen
“Antidepressant use and adolescent academic achievement”
ABSTRACT
We investigate impacts of antidepressant use in childhood on academic achievement at age 16, leveraging random assignment of patients to psychiatrists in Denmark. Using register data, we find that antidepressant treatment significantly increases 9th grade test scores. Treatment effects are larger and only precisely estimated for math (rather than Danish) and for girls (rather than boys). Marginal treatment effects are positive across the distribution, and larger among individuals predisposed towards treatment conditional on the clinician’s prescribing tendencies. The results indicate large detrimental impacts of mental health disorders on cognitive performance, and high returns to antidepressant treatment. They are consistent with evidence that attention deficits have a larger impact on math performance, and that girls are more sensitive to attention deficits, illuminating gender gaps in STEM performance.
The series this semester will either be held virtually on Zoom or in ICC 550. This seminar is joint with the World Bank. It begins on Thursday afternoons at 12:30pm EST. A registration link will be shared with our seminar mailing list the week before.
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