The studies on those who attempt suicide multiple times and on the vigorous association between past and future suicidality (even accounting for "kitchen sink" variables) are consistent with the view that people habituate to self-injury and thereby gain the ability to enact increasing severe suicidal behaviors.
That is the main argument of Thomas Joiner’s Why People Die by Suicide. Here is the book’s home page. Here is an excerpt. Here is a summary. By the way, athletes, who are used to harming themselves, commit suicides at relatively high rates.
The traditional economic approach compares the costs and benefits of staying alive, with option value thrown in for good measure. It seems more realistic to treat people as having periodic suicidal urges, but (fortunately) usually lacking the capability to execute those urges. Why some people find reason to work their way "up the ladder" of capabilities is the next question. Perhaps the mechanisms behind suicide have more to do with employment, and with economic growth, than we used to think. Rather than making an analysis of suicide more like modern economics, should economics become more like the theory of suicide?
More people die by suicide in New York City than are murdered; here are twenty facts about death. Have I mentioned? It seems to be "Death Day" over at MarginalRevolution this lovely Tuesday…
It’s been claimed that dead human bodies decompose more slowly these days because of all the chemical preservatives in food. The claim sounds awfully urban-legendish, though I don’t know if it’s ever been proven or disproven.
Why is it that the people that have the most think it would be the best solution to die when the homeless guy under the bridge will try to live forever. If someone is going to take the suscide route if they really mean it I think you will sucedde if not then you dont’ really wont to die they just wont attention.
Seems like there was an interview with Gary Becker a while back in the FT where he mentioned that he was working on a theory of suicide. Or how to tell the difference between a “cry for help” and a genuine failed suicide attempt.
Tyler,
One thing that you left out of your collection of links is that Mental Health Professionals have relatively http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19970701-000045.html“> high rates of suicide.
I wonder if Economists have a worse than average record at managing their own money?
“More people die by suicide in New York City than are murdered.”
This is not correct. In 2004, the homicide rate in New York City was 7.0 per 100,000. I can’t find the suicide rate for 2004 but in 2001 it was 4.8. Given 8 million residents, something like 175 more people die by homicide than by suicide.
Hmm, here at UChicago people seem to think the suicide rate is high, but I haven’t been able to find any evidence supporting that. The most popular major is economics, but that’s probably not relevant either. Looking at universities in general, the suicide rate is much lower than that of the general population, which makes sense.
Re: economics of suicide:
Deadweight loss?
Even worse is all those depressing nordic countries took over the metal scene from the NWOBHM and bay area thrash bands it rightfully belonged to.
If, as you say, it is “death day” here at Marginal Revolution…what a lovely time to sit down with the back of an envelope and take a look at our largest group of preventable deaths. Spose you’all could put down your official, expert, wild-guesses about how many die due to the post-Thalidomide changes in the way the FDA regulates new drugs? Not the countable number that die waiting for a drug that is approved some time later…. but the much larger number that die because lots of research leads don’t get funded when it’s such a long and expensive path to approval and market.
If Peltzman’s estimate (that we are loosing 60% of our new drugs) is still the best number we have, we would appear to be loosing millions of lives a year. A net estimate (wild guess) would be nice…. after all, we do these kinds of estimates wrt Iraq. (yes, Tyrone, we did do these numbers before we went to war, just like we do them when deciding to buy or lease the new SUV).
I especially like the last fact in the linked article, that 100 billion people have died, because it means that more than 5% of all the people who have ever lived are still alive. Thus, the hypothesis of human immortality has not been statistically disproved.
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