Access to broadband internet causally linked to reduction in suicides | Hacker News Reader

Access to broadband internet causally linked to reduction in suicides

nber.org

Having money causally linked to reduction in suicides

better quality of life leads to lower wish of dying it seems, who would have thought

There was a novel written in the early 1900s that said men don't commit suicide from heartbreak but from lack of hope for money.

What is the precise mechanism of causation?

I thought it was a typo at first, and should've said "casually". Maybe there's a general correlation, but I don't see a firm causation at all.

The abstract already speculates that this effect might be modulated via economic well-being.

Now I wonder if they also addressed correlation-vs-causation? Perhaps economic growth causes both fewer suicides and more broadband internet?

They say in the paper: “We find that increased access to broadband internet in a county leads to a reduction in poverty, and an increase in income, employment, and the number of employees and establishments by zip code.”

However, I can’t find the part of the paper that actually justifies that claim. That doesn’t mean it’s not there, I just couldn’t find it in a quick skim.

There’s a section “Potential Mechanisms” on page 18 of the PDF.

“Table 4 presents the effect of increased broadband availability on several county level economic outcomes. Each column includes all controls and fixed effects included our preferred specification. Column 1 reports that the result of a 10% increase in a county's population with access to broadband internet is a reduction in poverty rate of 0.089 percentage points. Column 2 indicates that a ten percentage point increase in broadband availability results in a reduction of unemployment in the county of 0.013 percentage points.”

That seems more likely. Or some complex interplay between those factors amongst others.

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