Essays on Well-being and Mental Health: Determinants and Consequences

This thesis presents three empirical studies, each providing insights into topics relating to subjective well-being and mental health, namely bullying, antisocial behaviour, and natural disasters. The first study uses data from the UK to explore how being bullied at age 11 affects subjective well-being as an adult. A range of methods are used including random effects ordered probit models, Hausman tests, and Heckman models. The results suggest that childhood bullying victimisation is associated with lower adult subjective well-being. The findings indicate that preventing children from being bullied in schools may increase their subjective well-being as adults. The second study uses UK data to investigate how the mental health of adolescents affects their participation in antisocial behaviour. The analysis uses random effects probit, multivariate probit, and conditional logit models. The findings suggest that externalising problems (mental health problems directed at others) are positively associated with participation in fighting, vandalism, shoplifting, and truancy; and internalising problems (mental health problems directed at the individual) positively predict fighting behaviour. Hence, the results suggest that the mental health problems of adolescents may adversely affect their behaviour. The final study explores the effects of three natural disasters (the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the 2010 Haiti earthquake) on subjective well-being in the US. Using a difference-in-difference approach, the results suggest that Hurricane Katrina reduced the subjective well-being of Americans who lived in the states that were directly affected by the disaster. It is also found that the Indian Ocean tsunami and the Haiti earthquake increased the subjective well-being of Americans who lived closest to the disaster areas. It is argued that following the extensive media coverage of these disasters, Americans may have compared themselves favourably to the disaster victims, thus their subjective well-being increased because they were grateful to be unaffected.