Sick of Politics?

Jon H. Fiva, Jo Thori Lind, Bjørn-Atle Reme and Henning Øien

No 11881, CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo

Abstract: Political office involves stress, long hours, and media scrutiny, which may harm politicians' health. However, winning prestigious positions can increase social status, income, and connections, potentially offsetting these harms. We investigate the health effects of political promotions using comprehensive Norwegian administrative data on public health care utilization. Using an event study framework, we assess health outcomes by comparing newly elected mayors to controls matched by gender, age group, and education within the same municipality. While securing full-time office results in a substantial income boost, we find no evidence of adverse health effects. On the contrary, winning office leads to a sustained modest reduction in both general doctor visits and mental health consultations. This evidence runs counter to common concerns about the toll of political careers, pointing to potential health benefits associated with political advancement.

Keywords: political selection; returns from office; health consequences; event study; administrative data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 I12 J81 M51 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp11881.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ces:ceswps:_11881

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CESifo Working Paper Series from CESifo Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Klaus Wohlrabe ().