Yes - very roughly, they find that regions with lots of layoffs show an increase in subsequent cognitive decline: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_pap

Yes - very roughly, they find that regions with lots of layoffs show an increase in subsequent cognitive decline: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35117/w35117.pdf https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w35117/w351... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_variable https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instrumental_variable Not perfect, but less vulnerable to the correlation issue you mentioned.