Abstract:

The determinants of suicide have long been studied by psychologists and sociologists, but only a small and more recent literature in economics has contributed to understanding this phenomenon. We utilize a comprehensive set of suicide data from India to look for evidence of economically motivated suicide. Using state-level panel data on suicide rates in between the years 1967 and 2013 and exogenous variation in climate, we (a) identify the causal effect of variations in temperature and precipitation on suicide rates across the country; and (b) find empirical support for an economic channel through which these shocks affect suicide. We show that temperature has a positive and significant effect on suicide, but only during India’s main agricultural growing season, when high temperatures also lower crop yields. For growing season days above 15◦C, a 1◦C increase in daily temperature causes an additional 370 suicides. Our results provide some justification for the development of suicide prevention policies that ameliorate negative agricultural shocks, while also contributing to the growing literature on the social and economic impacts of climate change.