As if winning a Nobel Prize wasn't enough... 

 ... it may extend your life by up to two years, according to a new  paper  by Matthew Rablen and Andrew Oswald from the University of Warwick, as reported in this week's  Economist .  They suggest that the increase in status associated with winning a Nobel Prize increases longevity compared to those who are nominated but never win.  As the authors note, looking at Nobel nominees and laureates presents some problems because nominees have to be alive at the time of their nomination (and, since 1971, have to  remain alive until the prize is awarded ).  This implies that living longer increases your chances of winning the prize in the first place. 

 One way that the authors try to deal with this problem is by matching Nobel winners to nominees who were nominated at the same age but never won.  Now we obviously like matching here at Harvard, but my sense is that this doesn't quite take care of the problem.  By dividing the groups into "winners" and "never winners", you still have the problem that some of the "never winners" stay in that category because they don't live long enough to be recognized with a prize.  It seems to me that a better approach would be to compare winners to individuals who were unsuccessful nominees at the same age, whether or not they went on to win a Nobel later in life.  I think is closer to the actual treatment, which is not "win or don't win", but rather "win now or stay in the pool."  My guess is that this comparison would reduce the matching-based estimate of the increase in lifespan.  

 On the other hand, there doesn't appear to be any evidence that winning a Nobel shortens your lifespan, so tell your friends that they should go ahead and nominate you (unless you agree with  Andrew Gelman  on this...).