Testing the hypothesis of the natural suicide rates: Further evidence from OECD data
Abstract
This paper provides further evidence on the hypothesis of the natural rate of suicide using the time series data for 15 OECD countries over the period 1970-2004. This hypothesis suggests that the suicide rate of a society could never be zero even if both the economic and the social conditions were made ideal from the point of view of suicide (Yang and Lester, 1991). This research relates the suicide rates to harmonized unemployment and divorce rates to test the natural hypothesis statistically. We also address methodological flaws by earlier suicide studies by employing autoregressive-distributed lag (ARDL) approach to cointegration advocated by Pesaran et al. (2001). In majority of regression equations, the constant term was positive and statistically significant, indicating a non-zero natural suicide rate. In particular, we find evidence that at aggregate level, Turkey has the lowest (3.64) and Japan has the highest (13.98) natural rate of suicides. In terms of the male natural suicide rates, the United Kingdom ranks the lowest (4.73) and Belgium ranks the top (15.44). As for the female natural suicide rates, Japan takes the lead (16.76) and Italy has the lowest (5.60). The results are also compared and contrasted to each other with a view to drawing plausible policy conclusions.Download Info
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Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Elsevier in its journal Economic Modelling.
Volume (Year): 28 (2011)
Issue (Month): 1-2 (January)
Pages: 22-26
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Handle: RePEc:eee:ecmode:v:28:y:2011:i:1-2:p:22-26
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Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30411
For corrections or technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Jeroen Loos).
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Keywords: Natural rate of suicides Cointegration Time series OECD;References
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Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Okada, Keisuke & Samreth, Sovannroeun, 2011. "A study on the socio-economic determinants of suicide: Evidence from 13 European OECD countries," MPRA Paper 29075, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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