The Effect of Economic Performance on Violent Deaths in the United States and Beyond from 1918-2004

Abstract

Much research has attempted to identify what the most significant causes for increases in suicide and homicide rates are. Though the main contributors to suicide and homicide are very well-known, the more overlooked trigger is economic performance. This empirical study seeks to discover if there is, in fact, a link between the volatile suicide and homicide rates over the 20th century and how the economy is performing. Using data that spans 1918-1998 for suicide and homicide rates, all categorized demographically by gender and race, and independent variables that provide a gauge of the economy’s annual health, namely unemployment rate, inflation rate, GDP growth and Dow Jones performance, I was able to find which groups of people were affected the most by certain economic variables. Among the many findings of this paper, the most significant is that all demographic groupings for both suicide and homicide were significantly affected by one or more economic variables. Furthermore, in Section 5, I check to see if the same conclusion holds true for other countries around the world. Using a similar regression analysis model, suicide data categorized by gender, and data for unemployment rate, GDP per capita, and inflation on consumer products, the countries France, Japan, Switzerland and the United States all showed a relationship, although each country had a different response to their specific economic variables.