Longevity returns to political office

Barfort, Sebastian; Klemmensen, Robert; Larsen, Erik Gahner

doi:10.1017/psrm.2019.63

Cited by 4 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 31 publications

(38 reference statements)

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“…I also took the extra step of compiling data on a different comparison group of non‐business elites, namely US senators, where status in the political hierarchy can be observed. This exercise is related to work by Borgschulte and Vogler and Barfort et al., who show that winning political office in the United States is associated with an increase in lifespan, while offering a different test to these studies based on the relationship between lifespan and status rank. Senators are organized by rank according to the length of their consecutive service in the Senate, with rank being a key determinant of placement on the most prestigious committees.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status and mortality: Is there a Whitehall effect in the United States?

Nicholas¹

2023

The Economic History Review

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The influential Whitehall studies found that top‐ranking civil servants in Britain experienced lower mortality than civil servants below them in the organizational hierarchy due to differential exposure to workplace stress. I test for a Whitehall effect in the United States using a 1930 cohort of white‐collar employees at a leading firm – General Electric (GE). All had access to a corporate health and welfare program during a critical period associated with the health transition. I measure status using position in the managerial hierarchy, attendance at prestigious management training camps and promotions, none of which is associated with a Whitehall‐like rank‐mortality gradient. Instead, senior managers and executives experienced a 3–5‐year decrease in lifespan relative to those in lower levels, with the largest mortality penalty experienced by individuals in the second level of the hierarchy. I discuss generalizability and potential explanations for this reversal of the Whitehall phenomenon using additional data on the status and lifespan of top business executives and US senators.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Status and mortality: Is there a Whitehall effect in the United States?

Nicholas¹

2023

The Economic History Review

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“…A recent study [ 44 ] investigated the effect of running for US gubernatorial office on longevity. The authors use a regression discontinuity design, and conclude that politicians winning a close election live 5 to 10 years longer than if they had lost.…”

Section: Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Despite these concerns, we analyze this data set here as it allows us to demonstrate some of the functionality specific to BNDD. The data are available from the original publication [ 44 ], and subsequently preprocessed following [ 45 ].…”

Section: Applicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Bayesian model averaging for nonparametric discontinuity design

et al. 2022

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Quasi-experimental research designs, such as regression discontinuity and interrupted time series, allow for causal inference in the absence of a randomized controlled trial, at the cost of additional assumptions. In this paper, we provide a framework for discontinuity-based designs using Bayesian model averaging and Gaussian process regression, which we refer to as ‘Bayesian nonparametric discontinuity design’, or BNDD for short. BNDD addresses the two major shortcomings in most implementations of such designs: overconfidence due to implicit conditioning on the alleged effect, and model misspecification due to reliance on overly simplistic regression models. With the appropriate Gaussian process covariance function, our approach can detect discontinuities of any order, and in spectral features. We demonstrate the usage of BNDD in simulations, and apply the framework to determine the effect of running for political positions on longevity, of the effect of an alleged historical phantom border in the Netherlands on Dutch voting behaviour, and of Kundalini Yoga meditation on heart rate.

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“…Here, I discuss a published paper in political science (Barfort et al, 2021) that made a claim—“politicians winning a close election live 5–10 years longer than candidates who lose”—that aroused my skepticism. My purpose here is not to formally rebut that paper (although I do present several arguments against it) but rather to use this as an example of how we, as consumers as well as producers of science, can engage with published work .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%