@TechReport{iza:izadps:dp17580,
            	author={Halla, Martin and Schmidpeter, Bernhard},
            	title={Werther at Work: Intra-Firm Spillovers of Suicides},
            	year={2024},
	month={Dec},
            	institution={Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)},
            	address={Bonn},
            	type={IZA Discussion Paper},
            	number={17580},
            	url={https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17580},
	abstract={Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide and a critical public health concern. We examine the hypothesis of suicide contagion within in the workplace, investigating whether exposure to a coworker's suicide increases an individual's suicide risk. Using high-quality administrative data from Austria and an event study approach, we compare approximately 150,000 workers exposed to a coworker's suicide with a matched group exposed to a "placebo suicide". We find a significant increase in suicide risk for exposed individuals, with a cumulative treatment effect of 0.04 percentage points (33.3 percent) over a 20-year post-event period. Exposed individuals who also die by suicide are more likely to use the same method as their deceased coworker, strongly suggesting a causal link. Two placebo tests bolster this interpretation: workers who left the firm before the suicide and those exposed to a coworker's fatal car accident do not show an elevated suicide risk.},
	keywords={suicide;workplace;contagion hypothesis;Werther-effect;mental health},
            }