Relative status and well-being: evidence from U.S. suicide deaths

Mary Daly, Norman J. Johnson and Daniel Wilson

No 2012-16, Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

Abstract: We assess the importance of interpersonal income comparisons using data on suicide deaths. We examine whether suicide risk is related to others? income, holding own income and other individual and environmental factors fixed. We estimate models of the suicide hazard using two independent data sets: (1) the National Longitudinal Mortality Study and (2) the National Center for Health Statistics? Multiple Cause of Death Files combined with the 5 percent Public Use Micro Sample of the 1990 decennial census. Results from both data sources show that, controlling for own income and individual characteristics, individual suicide risk rises with others? income.

Keywords: Income distribution; Suicide; Happiness (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-ltv
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/papers/2012/wp12-16bk.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Relative Status and Well-Being: Evidence from U.S. Suicide Deaths (2013)
Working Paper: Relative status and well-being: evidence from U.S. suicide deaths (2007)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:fip:fedfwp:2012-16

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library ().