TY  - RPRT
        AU  - Halla, Martin
AU  - Schmidpeter, Bernhard
        TI  - Werther at Work: Intra-Firm Spillovers of Suicides
        PY  - 2024/Dec/
        PB  - Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)
        CY  - Bonn
        T2  - IZA Discussion Paper
        IS  - 17580
        UR  - https://www.iza.org/index.php/publications/dp17580
        AB  - 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.
        KW  - suicide
KW  - workplace
KW  - contagion hypothesis
KW  - Werther-effect
KW  - mental health
        ER  -