Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-5q6g5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-22T05:30:24.572Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Longevity returns to political office

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2020

Sebastian Barfort ,
Robert Klemmensen  and
Erik Gahner Larsen Open the ORCID record for Erik Gahner Larsen [Opens in a new window]
Sebastian Barfort
Affiliation:
Independent Researcher, Copenhagen, Denmark
Robert Klemmensen
Affiliation:
Political Science, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark
Erik Gahner Larsen*
Affiliation:
School of Politics and International Relations, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: E.G.Larsen@kent.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Does political office cause worse or better longevity prospects? Two perspectives in the literature offer contradicting answers. First, increased income, social status, and political connections obtained through holding office can increase longevity. Second, increased stress and working hours associated with holding office can have detrimental effects on longevity. To provide causal evidence, we exploit a regression discontinuity design with unique data on the longevity of candidates for US gubernatorial office. The results show that politicians winning a close election live 5–10 years longer than candidates who lose.

Keywords

Comparative politics: political behaviorcomparative politics: political institutionselections and campaignsexperimental researchpolitical psychology

Information

Type
Research Note
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 9 , Issue 3 , July 2021 , pp. 658 - 664
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Berggren, N, Jordahl, H and Poutvaara, P (2017) The right look: conservative politicians look better and voters reward it. Journal of Public Economics 146, 79–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calonico, S, Cattaneo, MD and Titiunik, R (2014) Robust nonparametric confidence intervals for regression-discontinuity designs. Econometrica 82, 2295–2326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calonico, S, Cattaneo, MD and Titiunik, R (2015) Optimal data-driven regression discontinuity plots. Journal of the American Statistical Association 110, 1753–1769.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calonico, S, Cattaneo, MD, Farrell, MH and Titiunik, R (2016) Regression discontinuity designs using covariates. University of Michigan, Working Paper.Google Scholar
Carnes, N (2012) Does the numerical underrepresentation of the working class in congress matter? Legislative Studies Quarterly 37, 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnes, N (2013) White-Collar Government: The Hidden Role of Class in Economic Policy Making. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cattaneo, MD, Jansson, M and Ma, X (2016) Simple local regression distribution estimators with an application to manipulation testing. University of Michigan, Working paper. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~cattaneo/papers/Cattaneo-Jansson-Ma_2017_LocPolDensity.pdf.Google Scholar
Chetty, R, Stepner, M, Abraham, S, Lin, S, Scuderi, B, Turner, N, Bergeron, A and Cutler, D (2016) The association between income and life expectancy in the united states, 2001–2014. JAMA 315, 1750–1766.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cristia, JP (2009) Rising mortality and life expectancy differentials by lifetime earnings in the united states. Journal of Health Economics 28, 984–995.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cutler, D, Deaton, A and Lleras-Muney, A (2006) The determinants of mortality. The Journal of Economic Perspectives 20, 97–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deaton, A (2016) On death and money: history, facts, and explanations. JAMA 315, 1703–1705. doi: 10.1001/jama.2016.4072.eprint/data/journals/jama/935237/jed160028.pdf. http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2016.4072.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dennis, J and Crayford, T (2015) Parliamentary privilege–mortality in members of the houses of parliament compared with the UK general population: retrospective cohort analysis, 1945–2011. BMJ 351, h6563.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Eggers, AC and Hainmueller, J (2009) MPs for sale? Returns to office in postwar British politics. American Political Science Review 103, 513–533.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eggers, AC, Fowler, A, Hainmueller, J, Hall, AB and Snyder, JM (2015) On the validity of the regression discontinuity design for estimating electoral effects: new evidence from over 40,000 close races. American Journal of Political Science 59, 259–274.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fahey, K (2018) The perks of being a lawmaker: returns to office as a legislative goal. Legislative Studies Quarterly 41, 37–68.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisman, R, Schulz, F and Vig, V (2014) The private returns to public office. Journal of Political Economy 122, 806–862.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gelman, A and Imbens, G (2014) Why high-order polynomials should not be used in regression discontinuity designs. Technical Report, National Bureau of Economic Research.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glashan, RR (1979) American Governors and Gubernatorial Elections, 1775–1978. Vol. 1. Westport, CT: Meckler Books.Google Scholar
Goldbaum, G (2012) Accelerated aging of us presidents. JAMA 307, 1254–1254.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jones, JM and Jones, JL (2006) Presidential stroke: United States presidents and cerebrovascular disease. CNS Spectrums 11, 674–678.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jordan, MP and Grossmann, M (2016) The Correlates of State Policy Project. East Lansing, MI: Institute for Public Policy and Social Research (IPPSR).Google Scholar
Lee, DS and Lemieux, T (2010) Regression discontinuity designs in economics. Journal of economic literature 48, 281–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Link, BG, Carpiano, RM and Weden, MM (2013) Can honorific awards give us clues about the connection between socioeconomic status and mortality? American Sociological Review 78, 192–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Liu, GG, Kwon, O, Xue, X and Fleisher, BM (2017) How much does social status matter to longevity?—Evidence from China's academician election. Health Economics 26, 292–304.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Marmot, M (2004) The Status Syndrome: How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity. New York: Henry Holt and Company.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCrary, J (2008) Manipulation of the running variable in the regression discontinuity design: a density test. Journal of Econometrics 142, 698–714.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mullaney, MM and Glashan, RR (1988) American Governors and Gubernatorial Elections, 1979–1987. Westport, CT: Meckler.Google Scholar
Olenski, AR, Abola, MV and Jena, AB (2015) Do heads of government age more quickly? Observational study comparing mortality between elected leaders and runners-up in national elections of 17 countries. BMJ 351, h6424.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Olshansky, SJ (2011) Aging of us presidents. JAMA 306, 2328–2329.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Palmer, M and Schneer, B (2015) The corporate boardroom's revolving door. Working paper.Google Scholar
Palmer, M and Schneer, B (2016) Capitol gains: the returns to elected office from corporate board directorships. The Journal of Politics 78, 181–196.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Press, CQ (2010) CQ Press voting and elections collection. Online, http://library.cqpress.com/elections/.Google Scholar
Rablen, MD and Oswald, AJ (2008) Mortality and immortality: the Nobel prize as an experiment into the effect of status upon longevity. Journal of Health Economics 27, 1462–1471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ransone, CB (1982) The American Governorship. Connecticut: Greenwood Press Westport. ISBN 0313229775.Google Scholar
Sabato, L (1978) Goodbye to good-time Charlie: The American governor transformed, 1950–1975. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Schneiderman, N, Ironson, G and Siegel, SD (2005) Stress and health: psychological, behavioral, and biological determinants. Annual Review of Clinical Psychology 1, 607–628.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shavelle, RM, Kush, SJ, Paculdo, DR, Strauss, DJ and Day, SM (2008) Underwriting the presidents. Journal of Insurance Medicine 40, 120–123.Google ScholarPubMed
Wilkinson, RG (2005) The Impact of Inequality: How to Make Sick Societies Healthier. New York, NY: The New Press.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Barfort et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/IBKYRX
Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Barfort et al. supplementary material

Online Appendix
Download Barfort et al. supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 175.5 KB