Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia

Cornelius Christian; Lukas Hensel; Christopher Roth

doi:10.1162/rest_a_00777

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Income Shocks and Suicides: Causal Evidence From Indonesia

Cornelius Christian¹; Lukas Hensel²; Christopher Roth³

¹ Brock University · ² University of Oxford · ³ Institute on Behavior and Inequality

The Review of Economics and Statistics 2019 open access

Abstract We examine how income shocks affect the suicide rate in Indonesia. We use a difference-in-differences approach, exploiting the cash transfer's nationwide rollout, and corroborate the findings using a randomized experiment. Our estimates show that the cash transfers reduce the yearly suicide rate by 0.36 per 100,000 people, corresponding to an 18% decrease. Moreover, a different type of income shock, variability in agricultural productivity, also affects the suicide rate. The cash transfer program reduces the causal impact of the agricultural productivity shocks, suggesting an important role for policy interventions. Finally, we provide evidence for depression as a psychological mechanism.

DOI: 10.1162/rest_a_00777
Volume: 101 (5)
Pages: 905-920
Language: en
Export: BibTeX
Sources: openalex crossref