TY  - JOUR
AU  - Tekin,Erdal
AU  - Markowitz,Sara
TI  - Suicidal Behavior and the Labor Market Productivity of Young Adults
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11238
PY  - 2005
Y2  - April 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11238
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11238.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Erdal Tekin
Department of Economics
Andrew Young School of Policy Studies
Georgia State University
P.O. Box 3992
Atlanta, GA 30302-3992
Tel: 404/413-0163
Fax: 404/413-0145
E-Mail: tekin@gsu.edu

Sara Markowitz
Department of Economics
Emory University
Rich Building, 3rd floor
1602 Fishburne Dr.
Atlanta, GA 30322
Tel: (404) 712-8167
E-Mail: sara.markowitz@emory.edu
AB  - This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the link between suicidal behaviors and human capital formation of young adults in the United States.  Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the effects of suicide thoughts and attempts on the probability of engaging in work or school.  The richness of the data set allows us to implement several strategies to control for unobserved heterogeneity and the potential reverse causality.  These include using a large set of control variables that are likely to be correlated with both suicidal behavior and the outcome measures, an instrumental variables method, and a fixed effects analysis from the subsample of twin pairs contained in the data. The longitudinal nature of the data set also allows us to control for past suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts of the individuals from their high school years as well as the suicidal behavior of their family members. Results from the different identification strategies consistently indicate that both suicide thoughts and suicide attempts decrease the likelihood a young adult individual engages in work or schooling.
ER  -