Title |
Economic hardship and suicide mortality in Finland, 1875–2010
|
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Published in |
HEPAC Health Economics in Prevention and Care, December 2014
|
DOI | 10.1007/s10198-014-0658-5 |
Pubmed ID | |
Authors |
Marko Korhonen, Mikko Puhakka, Matti Viren |
Abstract |
We investigate the determinants of suicide in Finland using annual data for consumption and suicides from 1860 to 2010. Instead of using some ad hoc measures of cyclical movements of the economy, we build our analysis on a more solid economic theory. A key feature is the habit persistence in preferences, which provides a way to measure individual well-being and predict suicide. We estimate time series of habit levels and develop an indicator (the hardship index) to describe the economic hardship of consumers. The higher the level of the index, the worse off consumers are. As a rational response to such a bad situation, some consumers might commit suicide. We employ the autoregressive distributed lags cointegration method and find that our index works well in explaining the long-term behavior of people committing suicide in Finland. |
X Demographics
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 1 | 50% |
Unknown | 1 | 50% |
Demographic breakdown
Type | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Members of the public | 2 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
Geographical breakdown
Country | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
United States | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 35 | 97% |
Demographic breakdown
Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Researcher | 8 | 22% |
Student > Master | 7 | 19% |
Student > Doctoral Student | 5 | 14% |
Other | 3 | 8% |
Student > Bachelor | 2 | 6% |
Other | 5 | 14% |
Unknown | 6 | 17% |
Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
---|---|---|
Economics, Econometrics and Finance | 7 | 19% |
Medicine and Dentistry | 7 | 19% |
Psychology | 7 | 19% |
Social Sciences | 4 | 11% |
Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 1 | 3% |
Other | 1 | 3% |
Unknown | 9 | 25% |