Socioeconomic Factors and Suicide Rates at Large-unit Aggregate Levels: A Comment

Eric Neumayer

Urban Studies, 2003, vol. 40, issue 13, 2769-2776

Abstract: Can socioeconomic factors seemingly explain variation in suicide rates at large-unit aggregate levels only due to an ecological fallacy? This is what Kunce and Anderson (2002) suggest based on fixed-effects estimation of US state suicide rates, in which they find little evidence that socioeconomic factors matter. This paper demonstrates that this result does not hold true for other large-unit aggregate levels in an analysis of suicide at the cross-national level. It is found that many socioeconomic factors have a statistically significant impact. It is concluded that sociological and economic theories explaining variation in suicide rates at the large-unit aggregate level with the help of aggregate socioeconomic factors cannot simply be dismissed because of an alleged ecological fallacy.

Date: 2003
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:urbstu:v:40:y:2003:i:13:p:2769-2776

DOI: 10.1080/0042098032000191029

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