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Abstract
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An analysis of 91 citations for an article by Yang and Lester (2007), which argued that suicides result in savings to the society, showed that only 9 reported Yang and Lester's thesis correctly, and only one article conducted a serious discussion of the issues raised by Yang and Lester.
Viscusi (1984) argued that the financial savings from the premature deaths of those who smoke cigarettes (as a results of reduced nursing home care costs and pension and social security payouts) were greater than the costs of medical care and life insurance. Viscusi calculated that each pack of cigarettes sold saves the society $0.72.
Yang and Lester (2007) applied Viscusi's arguments to those who die by suicide. Suicides results in savings from healthcare and nursing home costs later in life, as well as pension and social security payouts. When estimating the loss from future earnings by suicides, researchers typically forget that suicides may not be the most productive members of society. Many psychiatric researchers (e.g., Robins, 1981) argue that almost all suicides merit a psychiatric diagnosis, often a severe and disabling psychiatric disorder, and so their future earnings may be far lower than those of average citizens. Their psychiatric disorder may also incur large economic costs for psychiatric treatment had they lived.
Yang and Lester estimated the cost of suicides in 2005 in the USA to be $16.83 billion, the savings from not having to treat the psychiatric disorders of the suicides had they continued to live to be $8. 11 billion, the savings from pensions and nursing home care to be $12.99 billion, and the savings from assisted suicide to be $0.80 billion, giving a net savings from the suicides to be $5.07 billion in 2005 dollars.
As of the time of writing this article, Yang and Lester (2007) had 91 citations noted in Google Scholar. That seems to be impressive. The present review examined these 91 citations to see how they cited Yang and Lester...
... The present analysis of citations to our article indicates that citations may not be a valid measure of the significance of an article. Only nine researchers cited Yang and Lester's article correctly, and only one (Stack, 2007) conducted a serious discussion of the issues raised by Yang and Lester. In the years since 2007, theb thesis of Yang and Lester's article has died a natural death
Language: en |