Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between suicide rates and institutional quality. Design/methodology/approach This study used autoregressive distributed lag model and error correction model to examine short-run and long-run relationships during 1996–2017 in Lebanon. Findings The study shows that in the long-run, suicide rates are significantly associated to the control of corruption, voice and accountability and rule of law, but not to regulatory quality, political stability and government efficiency. In the short-run, nearly all variables of institutional quality have a negative and significant relationship to suicide rates. Results are discussed in detail. Originality/value This research is the first to inspect the relation between the quality of institutions and suicide rates. Empirical results of this study add new evidence to the literature and provide support to policymakers.

PurposeThis paper attempts to investigate the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on the returns and volatility of the United States (US) natural gas futures market.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses secondary data of 996 trading day provided by the US Department of Energy and investing.com websites and applies the event study methodology in addition to the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedastic (GARCH) family models.FindingsThe findings from the exponential EGARCH (1,1) estimate are the best indication of a significant positive effects of the Ukraine–Russia war on the returns and volatility of the US natural gas futures prices. The cumulative abnormal returns (CARs) of the event study show that the natural gas futures prices reacted negatively but not significantly to the Russian–Ukraine war at the event date window [−1,1] and the [−15, −4] event window. CARs for the longer pre and post-event window display significant positive values and coincides with the standard finance theory for the case of the US natural gas futures over the Russia–Ukraine conflict.Originality/valueThis is the first study to examine the impact of the Russia–Ukraine war on natural gas futures prices in the United States. Thus, it provides indications on the behavior of investors in this market and proposes new empirical evidence that help in investment analyses and decisions.