IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_12047.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Survival of the Royals

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Batinti
  • Joan Costa-Font
  • Vasuprada Shandar
  • Joan Costa-i-Font

Abstract

We study the effect of royalty status - historically rooted legal privilege enjoyed by hereditary monarchs - on human longevity, a proxy of individuals’ health capital. We disentangle royalty status that encompassed serving as heads of state, and hence subject to status-related stress, from other family members alongside their contemporary countrymen. We exploit a dataset containing relevant demographic data and specifically the lifespan (age at death) of European Royals and their families spanning the past three centuries (1669 to 2022) from the sixteen European countries, including information for 845 high-status nobility and relative monarchs which is compared to otherwise similar countrymen by adjusting for relevant confounders. We document robust evidence of a statistically significant gap in life expectancy between monarchs and other members of the royal family, as well as between monarchs and the general population of an average of 5.2 to 7.1 years longer than their contemporaneous countrymen.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa-Font & Vasuprada Shandar & Joan Costa-i-Font, 2025. "The Survival of the Royals," CESifo Working Paper Series 12047, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12047
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12047.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tom Nicholas, 2023. "Status and mortality: Is there a Whitehall effect in the United States?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1191-1230, November.
    2. Costa-Font, Joan & Ljunge, Martin, 2018. "The ‘healthy worker effect’: Do healthy people climb the occupational ladder?," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 119-131.
    3. Modin, Bitte, 2002. "Birth order and mortality: a life-long follow-up of 14,200 boys and girls born in early 20th century Sweden," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 1051-1064, April.
    4. Pamela Sharpe, 2012. "Explaining the short stature of the poor: chronic childhood disease and growth in nineteenth-century England," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 65(4), pages 1475-1494, November.
    5. David Cutler & Angus Deaton & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2006. "The Determinants of Mortality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 20(3), pages 97-120, Summer.
    6. Leonardo Becchetti & Fabio Pisani & Berkan Acar, 2023. "Eudaimonic wellbeing and life expectancy," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 76(2), pages 179-195, May.
    7. Borgschulte, Mark & Vogler, Jacob, 2019. "Run for your life? The effect of close elections on the life expectancy of politicians," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 18-32.
    8. Chandra, Amitabh & Vogl, Tom S., 2010. "Rising up with shoe leather? A comment on Fair Society, Healthy Lives (The Marmot Review)," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(7), pages 1227-1230, October.
    9. Rablen, Matthew D. & Oswald, Andrew J., 2008. "Mortality and immortality: The Nobel Prize as an experiment into the effect of status upon longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(6), pages 1462-1471, December.
    10. Timothy Besley & Masayuki Kudamatsu, 2006. "Health and Democracy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(2), pages 313-318, May.
    11. Leive, Adam, 2018. "Dying to win? Olympic Gold medals and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 193-204.
    12. Yen, Gili & Benham, Lee, 1986. "The best of all monopoly profits is a quiet life," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 347-353, December.
    13. Kieron Barclay & Martin Kolk, 2015. "Birth Order and Mortality: A Population-Based Cohort Study," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 613-639, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Malmendier, Ulrike M. & Borgschulte, Mark & Guenzel, Marius & Liu, Canyao, 2020. "CEO Stress, Aging, and Death," CEPR Discussion Papers 14933, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Sasaki, Shusaku & Kurokawa, Hirofumi & Ohtake, Fumio, 2019. "Positive and negative effects of social status on longevity: Evidence from two literary prizes in Japan," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 1-1.
    3. Tom Nicholas, 2023. "Status and mortality: Is there a Whitehall effect in the United States?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(4), pages 1191-1230, November.
    4. Batinti, Alberto & Costa-Font, Joan & Shandar, Vasuprada, 2025. "The survival of the royals," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 128983, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    5. Borgschulte, Mark & Vogler, Jacob, 2019. "Run for your life? The effect of close elections on the life expectancy of politicians," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 167(C), pages 18-32.
    6. Leive, Adam, 2018. "Dying to win? Olympic Gold medals and longevity," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 193-204.
    7. Kalwij, Adriaan, 2018. "The effects of competition outcomes on health: Evidence from the lifespans of U.S. Olympic medalists," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 276-286.
    8. Saarela, Jan & Cederström, Agneta & Rostila, Mikael, 2016. "Birth order and mortality in two ethno-linguistic groups: Register-based evidence from Finland," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 158(C), pages 8-13.
    9. Borowiecki, Karol Jan & Kavetsos, Georgios, 2015. "In fatal pursuit of immortal fame: Peer competition and early mortality of music composers," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 30-42.
    10. Karabulut, Gokhan & Zimmermann, Klaus F. & Bilgin, Mehmet Huseyin & Doker, Asli Cansin, 2021. "Democracy and COVID-19 outcomes," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    11. Myrskylä, Mikko & Elo, Irma T. & Kohler, Iliana V. & Martikainen, Pekka, 2014. "The association between advanced maternal and paternal ages and increased adult mortality is explained by early parental loss," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 215-223.
    12. Detlefsen, Lena & Friedl, Andreas & Lima de Miranda, Katharina & Schmidt, Ulrich & Sutter, Matthias, 2018. "Are Economic Preferences Shaped by the Family Context? The Impact of Birth Order and Siblings' Sex Composition on Economic Preferences," IZA Discussion Papers 11949, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    13. Philipp Ager & Casper Worm Hansen & Peter Sandholt Jensen, 2018. "Fertility and Early-Life Mortality: Evidence from Smallpox Vaccination in Sweden," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(2), pages 487-521.
    14. Karol Jan BOROWIECKI & Georgios KAVETSOS, 2011. "Does Competition Kill? The Case of Classical Composers," Trinity Economics Papers tep1111, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    15. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J. & Salvanes, Kjell G., 2016. "Healthy(?), wealthy, and wise: Birth order and adult health," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 23(C), pages 27-45.
    16. Welander, Anna & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nilsson, Therese, 2015. "Globalization, democracy, and child health in developing countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 136, pages 52-63.
    17. Marcus Ebeling, 2018. "How Has the Lower Boundary of Human Mortality Evolved, and Has It Already Stopped Decreasing?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(5), pages 1887-1903, October.
    18. Christopher J. Boyce & Andrew J. Oswald, 2012. "Do people become healthier after being promoted?," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(5), pages 580-596, May.
    19. Welander, Anna & Lyttkens, Carl Hampus & Nilsson, Therese, 2014. "Globalization and Child Health in Developing Countries: The Role of Democracy," Working Papers 2014:11, Lund University, Department of Economics.
    20. Ọláyínká Oyèkọ́lá, 2023. "Democracy Does Improve Health," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 166(1), pages 105-132, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913
    • P00 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - General - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12047. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.