IMF-lending programs and suicide mortality

Abstract

While the economic consequences of IMF programs have been extensively analyzed in the literature, much less is known about how key welfare indicators, including suicide-mortality rates, correlate with countries' participation in such programs. This paper examines the impact of IMF lending on suicide mortality, using data from 30 developing and transition countries that received non-concessionary IMF loans during 1991–2008. Our results support the hypothesis of a positive causal relationship between suicide mortality and participation in IMF programs but reveal no systematic suicide-increasing effect from the size of IMF loans. This holds after accounting for self-selection into programs, resulting from the endogeneity of a country's decision to resort to the IMF for funding, and after controlling for standard socio-economic influences on suicidal behaviour. In particular, we find a positive aggregate suicide-mortality differential due to IMF-program participation of between 4 and 14 percentage points. We also find that the positive association between suicides and program participation is stronger and more robust among males. Comparing age groups, individuals belonging to the age group 45-to-64 exhibit the highest increase in suicide due to program-participation, which amounts to over 18 percentage points. Overall, our results imply that when countries are exposed to IMF programs in an attempt to resolve their economic problems, social-safety nets need to be designed to protect the adversely-affected part of the population.