Economic disparities and suicides: The dynamic panel data analyses of 50 states in the United States

Abstract

The economic inequalities associated with suicide risks among 50 states in the United States were identified in this paper to form the dynamic panel data set from 1981 to 2016. The effects of growing income inequalities on suicides in the Unites States were estimated using the Arellano–Bond method. This paper is the first to associate the social inequalities with suicides using the state-level dynamic panel data in America. It is found that the change of unemployment rates significantly and positively impact the changes of the overall suicides rates, female and male suicides rates. The changes of Top 10% income index are uniformly positive to the change of female, male and overall state-level suicide rates. The Gini index has positive correspondence within the overall and female groups, along with the insignificantly vague evidence within the male groups. The potential endogeneity problem inferring from the fixed effect estimation has been also investigated accordingly. JEL Classification: A13, A14, I18.