Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/270590 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
CINCH Series No. 2020/04
Publisher: 
University of Duisburg-Essen, CINCH - Health Economics Research Center, Essen
Abstract: 
I analyze the relationship between state‐level economic shocks and suicides using historical US gold discoveries (1840‐1860) as a large unexpected economic shock. Gold discoveries were an unexpected and large economic shock of up to 3.5% of GDP. They provide as good as random variation to the local economy, that I use to estimate the effect of economic changes on suicides. Comprehensive mortality data by state and year does not exist for the US for 1840 to 1860. I thus make use of web scraped data from a newspaper archive and use suicide mentions per 100,000 pages as a proxy for suicides. Results show that overall gold discoveries are linked with a clear reduction in newspaper suicide mentions. The results indicate that an economic shock changes the suicide rate by one for every $136,659 to $251,145. This is estimate implies a higher cost‐effectiveness than previous research but is still seven to fourteen times the size of modern, cost‐effective suicide prevention method.
Subjects: 
Gold Rush
Economic Shock
Suicide
Newspaper
JEL: 
N31
I15
J11
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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