David Warsh reports: "Emmanuel Farhi, 41, of Harvard University, died last week, apparently by his own hand. It was the fourth such death of a prominent economist in a year, following those of Martin Weitzman, also of Harvard; Alan Krueger, of Princeton University; and William Sandholm, of the University of Wisconsin at Madison."
Suicide is always, or at least often, something of a mystery, but if I had some reporters to assign, I'd send one to go investigate these four deaths and come back with a story about something—academic economics, mental health, something. It is of interest beyond academia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in April 2020 that in the U.S., "From 1999 through 2018, the suicide rate increased 35%, from 10.5 per 100,000 to 14.2. The rate increased on average approximately 1% per year from 1999 to 2006 and by 2% per year from 2006 through 2018." Also, that "Suicide is a major contributor to premature mortality as it ranks as the second leading cause of death for ages 10–34 and the fourth leading cause for ages 35–54."
It's a complicated topic for news coverage because of the fear that the attention will contribute to generating copycat events.
Our friends at the Jed Foundation are doing fine work on college and university campuses on the topic of mental health and suicide prevention, but their efforts are mainly geared at the student population, not the professors.
