@article{ref1,
title="Can Labor Market Policies Reduce Deaths of Despair?",
journal="Journal of health economics",
year="2020",
author="Dow, William H. and Godøy, Anna and Lowenstein, Christopher and Reich, Michael",
volume="74",
number="",
pages="e102372-e102372",
abstract="Do minimum wages and the earned income tax credit (EITC) mitigate rising &quot;deaths of despair?&quot; We leverage state variation in these policies over time to estimate event study and difference-in-differences models of deaths due to drug overdose, suicide, and alcohol-related causes. Our causal models find no significant effects on drug or alcohol-related mortality, but do find significant reductions in non-drug suicides. A 10 percent minimum wage increase reduces non-drug suicides among low-educated adults by 2.7 percent, and the comparable EITC figure is 3.0 percent. Placebo tests and event-study models support our causal research design. Increasing both policies by 10 percent would likely prevent a combined total of more than 700 suicides each year.<p /><p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0167-6296",
doi="10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102372",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhealeco.2020.102372"
}