Crop-damaging temperatures increase suicide rates in India

Tamma A Carleton

Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley, Working Paper Series from Department of Agricultural & Resource Economics, UC Berkeley

Abstract: More than three quarters of the world's suicides occur in developing countries, yet little is known about the drivers of suicidal behavior in poor populations. I study India, where one fifth of global suicides occur and suicide rates have doubled since 1980. Using nationally comprehensive panel data over 47 y, I demonstrate that fluctuations in climate, particularly temperature, significantly influence suicide rates. For temperatures above 20 °C, a 1 °C increase in a single day's temperature causes ∼70 suicides, on average. This effect occurs only during India's agricultural growing season, when heat also lowers crop yields. I find no evidence that acclimatization, rising incomes, or other unobserved drivers of adaptation are occurring. I estimate that warming over the last 30 y is responsible for 59,300 suicides in India, accounting for 6.8% of the total upward trend. These results deliver large-scale quantitative evidence linking climate and agricultural income to self-harm in a developing country.

Keywords: 4404 Development Studies (for-2020); 37 Earth Sciences (for-2020); 44 Human Society (for-2020); Suicide (rcdc); Behavioral and Social Science (rcdc); Mental Health (rcdc); Acclimatization (mesh); Agriculture (mesh); Climate (mesh); Developing Countries (mesh); Hot Temperature (mesh); Humans (mesh); Income (mesh); India (mesh); Seasons (mesh); Suicide (mesh); Temperature (mesh); climate; suicide; agriculture; weather impacts; India; Humans (mesh); Suicide (mesh); Temperature (mesh); Climate (mesh); Seasons (mesh); Acclimatization (mesh); Developing Countries (mesh); Agriculture (mesh); Income (mesh); India (mesh); Hot Temperature (mesh); India; agriculture; climate; suicide; weather impacts; Acclimatization (mesh); Agriculture (mesh); Climate (mesh); Developing Countries (mesh); Hot Temperature (mesh); Humans (mesh); Income (mesh); India (mesh); Seasons (mesh); Suicide (mesh); Temperature (mesh) (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-08-15
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