Oh hi there! I have a small favour to ask. It's my birthday (for real), I have 2 busted knees and am on lockdown same as everyone else. Can you help me shoot this "we can't deal with a pandemic because the economy is what our lives really depend on" narrative into the sun? https://twitter.com/thetimes/status/1242534972487077903

Fun fact! I'm exactly 46 years old today. Other fun fact: the paper that disproved, forever, the core assumption of this study was published in 1975. The year after I was born. That's right: this Times article, published today, has been wrong for since I wore diapers. Thread! 2/

Let me introduce you to Professor Samuel Preston, economic demographer. In 1975, as a young faculty member, he wrote a paper that almost ended his career, because it demonstrated a result that almost no one wanted to hear. But he was right. 3/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_H._Preston

The paper is called "The Changing Relation between Mortality and level of Economic Development." In it, Preston introduces the curves that bear his name, "Preston Curves." These curves show that income & life expectancy are correlated. 4/ https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00324728.1975.10410201

But they are not correlated uniformly: small increases at low incomes have a larger effect than larger increases at large incomes. Then Preston used these curves to see if increases in income could account for increases in life expectancy. 5/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preston_curve

And he found, quite simply, that economic growth cannot account for increases in life expectancy. At all. As we learn in statistics classes, correlation =/= causation. And this result, super solid as it was, almost ended his career, because it went against common wisdom. 6/

The strength of Preston's results led to his article being republished over the years. However, his fundamental conclusion, that income cannot be understood to be a significant factor in the increasing life expectancy, is forgotten over and over in a growth-crazed world. 7/

And this Times article is based on forgetting, yet again, results that are almost 1/2 a century old. Like me. Check this quote out: "money and lives are, at some point, the same thing. 'We see this very strong correlation between GDP and life expectancy.'" This. Is. Wrong. 8/

Correlation =/= causation, remember? And Preston showed that income growth was NOT a factor in life expectancy increases. This next quote, if anything, is even worse: ... 9/

"If you reduce GDP per head by so much you start to reduce life expectancy considerably. Then what you are doing is cutting back GDP and at the same time shortening all our lives."
Again, this is completely evidence-free. And, in fact, we have evidence against it. 10/

Anyway, this horrific shooting-into-the-sun-worthy Times piece is based on an *unpublished* article. You know whose article, which nails yet another big-ass empirical nail in the coffin of this argument, is actually being *published* this Friday?

That's right. Mine. 11/

In an actual decent for-real open access academic journal. So stay tuned. But you don't need to rely on me here: good old Professor Sam Preston will do you just fine. Cheers.
End/

PS since more than 2 people seem to be reading this, and in the spirit of utterly shameless self promotion, if you're a journalist and would like an advance copy of my article and its press release, please let me know! My email address is easy to find, or let me know in DMs ...

It's here! Overlong thread explaining main findings, as usual ... https://twitter.com/JKSteinberger/status/1243658919647555584