TY - JOUR AU - Case, Anne AU - Deaton, Angus TI - Suicide, Age, and Wellbeing: an Empirical Investigation JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 21279 PY - 2015 Y2 - June 2015 DO - 10.3386/w21279 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w21279 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w21279.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Anne Case School of Public and International Affairs 129 Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544 Tel: 609/258-2177 Fax: 609/258-5974 E-Mail: accase@princeton.edu Angus Deaton School of Public and International Affairs 127 Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08544-1013 Tel: 609/258-5967 Fax: 609/258-5974 E-Mail: deaton@princeton.edu M1 - published as Anne Case, Angus Deaton. "Suicide, Age, and Well-Being: An Empirical Investigation," in David A. Wise, editor, "Insights in the Economics of Aging" University of Chicago Press (2017) M3 - presented at "Conference on the Economics of Aging", April 30 - May 2, 2015 AB - Suicide rates, life evaluation, and measures of affect are all plausible measures of the mental health and wellbeing of populations. Yet in the settings we examine, correlations between suicide and measured wellbeing are at best inconsistent. Differences in suicides between men and women, between Hispanics, blacks, and whites, between age groups for men, between countries or US states, between calendar years, and between days of the week, do not match differences in life evaluation. By contrast, reports of physical pain are strongly predictive of suicide in many contexts. The prevalence of pain is increasing among middle-aged Americans, and is accompanied by a substantial increase in suicides and deaths from drug and alcohol poisoning. Our measure of pain is now highest in middle age—when life evaluation and positive affect are at a minimum. In the absence of the pain epidemic, suicide and life evaluation are likely unrelated, leaving unresolved whether either one is a useful overall measure of population wellbeing. ER -