Psychological Reports, 2010, 106, 3, 731-736. © Psychological Reports 2010 DOI 10.2466/PR0.106.3.731-736 ISSN 0033-2941 NOTES ON THE DETERMINANTS OF SUICIDE RATES IN ITALY’S REGIONS: A REPLY TO VORACEK (2009) 1 EMANUELE FELICE University of Siena Summary.—This article is a review of Voracek’s report (2009) of aggregate in- telligence and suicide rates in Italy’s regions, contending some indings and pro- posing new evidence and suggestions for further research. Voracek did not use intelligence data, but educational atainment, which in Italy’s regions is afected by sharp imbalances in the quality of public schools and may not relect diferences in intelligence. The statistical analyses were inadequate given the small number of cases; the resulting correlation could be meaningless or even misleading. The paper shows that when the analysis is extended to other variables (latitude) or historical periods (1911) the correlations reported by Voracek are not signiicant. This criti- cism is based on perspectives among diferent branches of psychology and cogni- tive sciences, economic and social history, and economic geography. Voracek’s article (2009) about the correlation between intelligence and suicide rate in Italy’s regions evokes a fascinating topic (“quis auget sci- entiam, auget et dolorem,” to quote the Ecclesiastes 2 ), as do other works by Voracek, but the paper does not seem entirely correct in its logic, and reaches conclusions that might be more carefully posited. One problem arises from the claim that “regional IQ estimates and suicide rates in Italy were positively correlated” (Voracek, 2009, p. 1023); this claim is incorrect since the author did not use estimates of aggregate IQ for Italy’s regions. Secondly, it should be clearly stated that this correlation does not imply causation: in Voracek’s analysis, signiicant covariates are omited, most notoriously climatic diferences. An extension of the historical scope of the investigation, including regional suicide rates as well as other indica- tors for 1911, conirms that regional suicide rates are correlated not only with education, but also with latitude and per capita GDP, while signii- cance and causal links are hard to establish because of the small number of observations. Education and Intelligence in Italy’s Regions Some confusion arises from the fact that Voracek’s article makes use of data for education atainment from the 2006 Programme for Internation- al Student Assessment (PISA), which are approximated as “intelligence,” on the assumption that IQ and PISA are highly correlated. In Voracek’s 1 Address correspondence to Dr. Emanuele Felice, Department of Economics, University of Siena, Piazza S. Francesco 7, 53100 Siena, Italy or e-mail (emanuele.felice@gmail.com). 2 In Schopenhauer’s words (1969/1818, p. 310): “The person in whom genius is to be found sufers most of all.”