Investigating the impact of economy on suicide rate in Iran

Suicide could be considered one of the most important social harms of the present century. This social harm is on the rise and is annihilating human capital. According to the fundamental function of human capital in the prosperity and economic development of countries, it is significant to investigate the causes of suicide. In the meantime, economics, along with other sciences, has made efforts to investigate and identify the economic factors affecting suicide. The present study, as one of the studies conducted in this vain, tries to study the economic factors affecting the suicide rate in the provinces of Iran in the period 2005-2021 using the econometric models of panel data (generalized torque method). Therefore, in this study, the impact of several economic factors such as economic growth, unemployment rate, inflation rate, income inequality, industrialization, production gap, and urbanization in the area with a period of break in suicide attempts in the provinces Iran is investigated. Experimental results indicate that most economic variables with a break period have a significant effect on suicide. Thereafter, due to the increase of prosperity and economic growth in the previous period, the suicide rate of the current period is decreased significantly. Whereas, the production gap, unemployment rate, inflation, income inequality, and urbanization in the past period possess a positive relationship with the suicide rate of the current period.