3
How to live longer
Actress Meryl Streep (L), winner of the Best Actress Award for 'The Iron Lady,' and actor Jean Dujardin, winner of the Best Actor Award for 'The Artist,' pose in the press room at the 84th Annual Academy Awards held at the Hollywood & Highland Center on Feb. 26, 2012 in Hollywood, Calif.
To view this content, Javascript must be enabled and Adobe Flash Player must be installed.
What do Nobel laureates, Oscar winners, and baseball Hall of Famers have in common? They all outlive their peers.
Freakonomics this week looks at the growing body of research that looks at the relationship between status and life expectancy. The report features research by David Becker about baseball Hall of Famers; by Donald Redelmeier about Oscar winners; and by Andrew Oswald about Nobel Prize winners. In each case, the winners outlive the people they beat out -- which, as it happens, says more about the disappointment of losing than the joy of winning.
For those of us who aren’t likely to win a Nobel or an Oscar, we also propose an easy solution for tacking an extra year or two onto your life.
Your information about increasing lifespan by buying an annuity was most interesting, but very old news indeed. In Sense and Sensibility, Mrs. John Dashwood (one of the most villainous characters Jane Austen ever created) said, "if you observe, people always live for ever when there is any annuity to be paid them ... An annuity is a very serious business; it comes over and over every year, and there is no getting rid of it." I must make a note to buy one at once.
