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Presented By: Department of Economics

The Long-Run Effects of Psychotherapy on Depression and Economic Outcomes

Gautam Rao, University of California, Berkeley

Gautam Rao Gautam Rao
Gautam Rao
We study the long-run effects of therapy for depression on mental health and eco- nomic outcomes amongst adults in India. We revisit a clinical trial that randomized depressed adults (n=493) to a brief course of psychotherapy delivered by non-specialists or to a control condition. Five years later, the treatment group was 12 percentage points less likely to be depressed than the control group and had experienced 9 fewer months of depression on average over five years, implying a cost of $7.3 per month of depression averted. These effects exceeded expert predictions. Despite sustained improvements in mental health, we find no significant impacts on employment or consumption, sug- gesting that improved mental health alone may not be enough to persistently improve economic well-being in low-income settings.

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