By Centre for Economic Performance (September 2013)
This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It argues that: mental health is the biggest single predictor of life-satisfaction; depression and anxiety are more common during working age than in later life, accounting for a high proportion of disability, major economic costs, and financial losses to governments worldwide; in rich countries treatment is likely to have no net cost to the Exchequer due to savings on welfare benefits and lost taxes, and even in poor countries a reasonable level of coverage could be obtained at a cost of under $2 per head of population per year.