In this article, we review economic theories and empirical studies on the socioeconomic aspects
of suicide. Through our survey, we would like to emphasize the importance of studying suicide
by employing a "rational" approach that complements the medical perspective on suicide, which
assumes suicide to be the result of "irrational" behavior arising from mental illnesses such as
depression and other psychiatric disorders. We first introduce major economic theories of
suicide, followed by a summary of a variety of empirical studies from the socioeconomic
perspective. We then discuss the recent developments in economic studies on suicide, on the
basis of the authors' ongoing project on suicide. In the concluding section, we point out some
issues for further studies.
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