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Freakonomics Radio
It was a poem that inspired Dan Hammermesh to write his paper on the economics of suicide, as it presented a wealthy man committing suicide, challenging conventional notions of suicide as a problem of the poor.
Back in the spring of 1972, Dan Hammermesh was hunting around for a research topic. And he thought of a poem he'd read back in high school. The poem is Richard Corey by Edwin Arlington Robinson, writt...
— Episode: The Suicide Paradox (Rebroadcast)
Episode: The Suicide Paradox (Rebroadcast)
It was a poem that inspired Dan Hammermesh to write his paper on the economics of suicide, as it presented a wealthy man committing suicide, challenging conventional notions of suicide as a problem of the poor.
Back in the spring of 1972, Dan Hammermesh was hunting around for a research topic. And he thought of a poem he'd read back in high school. The poem is Richard Corey by Edwin Arlington Robinson, written in the last decade of the 19th century.
Whenever Richard Corey went downtown, we people on the pavement looked at him. He was a gentleman from soul to -
And he was rich, yes, richer than the king and admirably schooled in every grace. In fine, we thought that he was everything to make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked and waited for the light and went without the meat and cursed the bread. And Richard Corey, one calm summer night, went home and put a bullet in his head. That's it. The last part.