Mission Statement
Suicide is one of the most serious and vexing issues faced in all modern societies. According to the World Health Organization, approximately 3,000 people commit suicide every day--about every 30 seconds, one suicide-related death is reported. Moreover, in the last forty five years, suicide rate has increased by sixty percent worldwide.
Through the SOS project, we would like to emphasize the importance of studying suicides by employing a “rational” approach. If people are willing to recognize that some suicides are rational, studies would be conducted to ascertain the different incentives behind suicides. By this way, we believe that suicide prevention can gather sufficient resources as the seriousness of the current situation warrants, and thereby effective measures of suicide prevention can be developed and implemented. Through this website, we disseminate our research results and related information on suicides.
Project Overview
As of now, the Project involves the following main themes:
I. A comparison of suicides in Japan and other OECD countries;
II. Prefecture-level study of suicides in Japan;
III. Economic incentives behind suicides;
IV. Evaluation of suicide prevention policies.
Project Outputs
(Book)
(Journal Articles)
Chen, Joe, Yun Jeong Choi and Yasuyuki Sawada, "How Is Suicide Different in Japan?" Japan and the World Economy 21(2), 140-150, 2009.
Chen, Joe, Yun Jeong Choi, Kohta Mori, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Saki Sugano, “Those Who Are Left Behind: An Estimate of the Number of Family Members of Suicide Victims in Japan,” Social Indicators Research 94(3), 535-544, 2009.
Chen, Joe, Yun Jeong Choi, and Yasuyuki Sawada "Joint Liability Borrowing and Suicide", Economics Letters 109 (2), Pages 69-71, 2010.
Chen, Joe, Yun Jeong Choi, Kohta Mori, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Saki Sugano “Socio-Economic Studies on Suicide: A Survey,” Journal of Economic Surveys. 26(2): 271–306, 2012.
Mori, Kota, Joe Chen, Yun Cheong Choi, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Saki Sugano “A note on the decomposition technique of economic indices," Economics Bulletin EB-12-00317, 2012.
Matsubayashi, Tetsuya, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Michiko Ueda, "Does the Installation of Blue Lights on Train Platforms Prevent Suicide?: A Before-and-After Observational Study from Japan," Journal of Affective Disorders 147, 385-388, 2013.
Matsubayashi, Tetsuya, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Michiko Ueda, “Natural Disasters and Suicide: Evidence from Japan,” Social Science and Medicine 82, 126–133, 2013.
Matsubayashi, Tetsuya, Michiko Ueda, Yasuyuki Sawada, "The Effect of Public Awareness Campaigns on Suicides: Evidence from Nagoya, Japan," Journal of Affective Disorders 152, 526-529, 2014.
Matsubayashi, Tetsuay, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Michiko Ueda "Does the Installation of Blue Lights on Train Platforms Shift Suicide to Another Station?: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Affective Disorders 169, pp. 57-60, 2014.
Joe Chen, Yun Jeong Choi, Kota Mori, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Saki Sugano. "An Analysis of Suicides in Japan, 1997–2007: Changes in Incidence, Persistence, and Age Profiles." Social Indicators Research 121, 253–272, 2015. DOI 10.1007/s11205-014-0635-5. Formerly titled: “The Jump, Inertia, and Juvenization of Suicides in Japan,” CIRJE Discussion Paper Series F-628, July 2009.
Choi, Yun Jeong, Joe Chen and Yasuyuki Sawada, "Life Insurance and Suicide: Asymmetric Information Revisited," B. E. Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy (Contributions) 15(3), 1127-1149, 2015. CIRJE Discussion Paper Series F-558, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo, 2008.
Ueda, Michiko, Tetsuya Matsubayashi, and Yasuyuki Sawada "The effectiveness of installing physical barriers for preventing railway suicides and accidents: Evidence from Japan," Journal of Affective Disorders 178, 1-4, 2015.
Yong Woon Chung, Sung Jin Kang, Tetsuya Matsubayashi, Yasuyuki Sawada, and Michiko Ueda, "The Effectiveness of Platform Screen Doors for the Prevention of Subway Suicides in South Korea," Journal of Affective Disorders 194, 80-83, 2016.
Michiko Ueda, Kota Mori, Tetsuya Matsubayashi, and Yasuyuki Sawada. “Tweeting celebrity suicides: Users’ reaction to prominent suicide deaths on Twitter and subsequent increases in actual suicides.” Social Science & Medicine. Available online 28 June, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.06.032 <http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953617304082>