Economics of suicide | Hacker News Reader

Economics of suicide

slate.com

41 pointsdc2k0816 comments

>Marcotte's study found that after people attempt suicide and fail, their incomes increase by an average of 20.6 percent compared to peers who seriously contemplate suicide but never make an attempt. In fact, the more serious the attempt, the larger the boost—"hard-suicide" attempts, in which luck is the only reason the attempts fail, are associated with a 36.3 percent increase in income. (The presence of nonattempters as a control group suggests the suicide effort is the root cause of the boost.)

Or maybe the people who are willing to do things about their problems are both more likely to commit suicide in tough situations and more likely to thrive in better ones.

Isn't the obvious conclusion that severely depressed people are working under their capacity? I don't see where he considered that.

Some commenters wonder why high income rat-racers don't attempt suicide, then learn to stop and smell the roses, and lose income. I doubt that this is common. Suicidal feelings are brought on by a sense of futility, not stress or overwork.

I wouldn't say that's the obvious conclusion, if only because it assumes that income is highly enough correlated with work effort.

It doesn't strike me that such a correlation, which I do believe exists, is obviously within 20%, for example.

Moreover, I would consider the situation of working at or very near capacity and yet still not producing to be a plausible, if not likely, source of feelings of futility.

Non-blogjacked: http://www.slate.com/id/2090424

I volunteer at a suicide hotline. To judge from what they say, the people who call there aren't interested in economics, they're in pain.

Not to belittle suicidal people's feelings, but pain is an economic factor when economics is treated in the broad sense. People contemplating sucide feel that any potential joys of living are not worth the pain that they are experiencing. That is an economic decision, whether the decision maker is aware of it or not.

edit: spelling

Marcotte's study says income increases by 20% after a suicide attempt but his support for this figure is the following:

"Once you attempt suicide you suddenly have access to lots of resources: medical care, psychiatric attention, familial love and concern that were previously expensive or unavailable."

Last time I checked, that's not how we define income unless he's saying that this additional support is what's driving a concomitant rise in income.

This finding is the opposite of what I would have expected - namely that the more serious the encounter with death, the less seriously the would-be suicidist would subsequently treat the pursuit of material success.

Unfortunately the study seems to be behind a paywall so we can't figure out whether methodological flaws have produced these results.

The research paper is available via the author's website: http://userpages.umbc.edu/~marcotte/economics%20of%20suicide...

A good find. There is much more info in the paper:

1. People who contemplated suicide actually started with 21% less income than comparable peers.

2. Income increase effect (23-44%) significantly decreases with time - it goes to zero in 12-14 years.

3. The effect is the strongest for young while males.

So it seems after suicide attempt, you just get to income level of non-suicidal peers (or slightly above for more serious attempts), and this effects disappears after some time.

Also, it seems to me like the reason for income increase effect could be not so much "extra resources and care", but something more simple: people who got farther in executing their suicide plans are more driven/goal oriented/resolute, thus more likely to succeed financially. There is probably a similar effect for "people who contemplated running marathon" vs. "people who ran marathon".

Or perhaps people who were building up to a suicide attempt for a while, then made one, discovered "that wasn't so hard" and became more willing to tackle things they previously dismissed as hard.

Or maybe they internalised the idea "may as well try this difficult thing, I've tried suicide before so I can do it again" as a kind of backup/escape option that feels more real and available.

As someone who has come extremely close to ending my own life on several occasions (and have since begun treatment), I am inclined to believe that the mentioned "extra resources and care" are of significant impact.

Mental illness was and (albeit to a lesser degree) is a severe drain on my energy and productivity; I believe that for many this may account for the reduced income levels relative to "comparable peers".

Psychiatric care coming after an attempt may close this gap in productivity, allowing for increased income.

Of course, I speak only of my own experience and cannot of others'.

It may be enlightening to compare changes in income based on the presumed basis for the attempt or ideation (i.e. mental illness, economic circumstances, or familial / social factors).

I believe it to be especially important to study those suffering from mental illness separately, as illness can beget thought processes severely lacking in logic and rationality; an economic model assumes a level of rationality in the decision-making process that may not necessarily be present.

"This finding is the opposite of what I would have expected - namely that the more serious the encounter with death, the less seriously the would-be suicidist would subsequently treat the pursuit of material success."

Or it could be the opposite. Once the person sees material success as just a game he might be able to detach from it and play it more effectively.

Last time I checked, that's not how we define income unless he's saying that this additional support is what's driving a concomitant rise in income.

I believe that it is indeed what he is saying, and moreover it makes sense. That help can help them get jobs and resolve problems holding them back that they could not otherwise have resolved. This applies more to the low end of the economic scale than the high end of course, but then the low end statistically has more suicide attempts so would make up the bulk of the relevant population.

"The suicide-prevention movement fears that if suicide is deemed the rational product of someone's mind, we may feel justified in suspecting that mind forever."

Why? If it was rational, then when the reason for it is no longer there, then there is no reason to suspect that mind.

On top of that, if it's rational for one person it's rational for another (assuming the same circumstances), so why suspect the mind in the first place?

Is he using a different meaning of rational? (Perhaps "thought out"?)

"attempting suicide seems a rational choice, as long as the attempt isn't too successful"

What seems rational by economic standards may not be rational by other standards.

This is the kind of comment that is both cheap and, at first glance, insightful ... and just annoying enough for me to defend the opposing point of view:

"Behaving rationally by economic standards" is a fancy way of saying "trying to get what you want". Arguing that someone isn't actually making all the precise cost/benefit calculations before making an "economically rational" action is roughly equivalent to arguing that it's impossible to catch a baseball for anyone who can't solve differential equations in their head.

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