Socio-economic parameters of suicide; Causality analysis for Turkey

Suicide and factors causing it have been researched for many years. The causality relation ship of suicide and divorce rates, internet usage rates, population density, expected life expentancy, schooling rate at university level, Gini coefficient, unemployment rate, the rates of women in labor force, the umber of shut down firms, real income per capita, and personal healthy expenditure are studied in the framework data of years between 1996-2014 in Turkey. ARDL limit test has been applied as cointegration test. No long term meaningful relationship has been detected between variables as far as this approach is concerned. Based on the ARDL test, short term error correction term has been found negative (-91) and meaningful. This result shows that the short term imbalance is to be recovered in the long run. According to the results of the carried out Granger Causality Test, a bilateral causality relationship has been seen in long term suicide and shut down firms, divorce and personal health expenditure, life expectancy at birth and university registration rates, life expectancy at birth and personal health expenditurel and it has been seen that these variables are triggering one another. Unilateral relationship has been detected among other variables. For instance; the internet is the Granger cause of suicide, and GDP per capita is the Granger cause of suicide. Key Words ARDL Test, Granger Casuality Test, Cointegration, Suicide.