Working Paper: NBER ID: w29465
Authors: Monica Deza; Thanh Lu; Johanna Catherine Maclean
Abstract: We estimate the effect of local access to office-based mental healthcare on juvenile arrest outcomes. We leverage variation in the number of mental healthcare offices within a county over the period 1999 to 2016 in a two-way fixed-effects model. Office-based treatment is the most common modality of mental healthcare received by juveniles. We find that ten additional office-based mental healthcare providers in a county leads a decrease of 2.3% to 2.6% in the per capita costs to society of juvenile arrest. Findings are similar for arrest rates although often less precise, which suggests that accounting for social costs is empirically important. Crime imposes substantial costs on society and individuals, and interventions during early life can have more pronounced effects than those received at later stages, therefore our results imply increased juvenile access to mental healthcare may have an unintended benefit for the current and future generations.
Keywords: mental healthcare; juvenile arrests; fixed-effects model
JEL Codes: I12; I13
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Increased access to office-based mental healthcare providers (I11) | Decreased juvenile arrest outcomes (K40) |
| Increased access to office-based mental healthcare providers (I11) | Decreased per capita costs associated with juvenile arrests (K14) |
| Increased access to office-based mental healthcare providers (I11) | Improved mental health outcomes (I14) |
| Improved mental health outcomes (I14) | Decreased juvenile arrest outcomes (K40) |