Jacob Christensen

• Creative Class � Blog Archive � Higher Ed: Next Bloated Industry to Go? – Creative Class
  (tags: usa highereducation university)
• John Sides/The Monkey Cage: Book Review: Eurostars and Eurocities
  Adrian Favell�s Eurostars and Eurocities investigates migration within Europe, focusing on West Europeans who have left their countries of origin to live elsewhere in Europe. This kind of migration seems the inevitable and even desirable outcome of European integration, but yet �Eurostars� are remarkably uncommon: less than 2% of West Europeans live and work aboard in the continent. Favell seeks to explain this paradox.
  (tags: europe migration integration research sociology)
• Jon Danielsson – How bad could the crisis get? Lessons from Iceland | vox – Research-based policy analysis and commentary from leading economists
  Iceland�s banking system is ruined. GDP is down 65% in euro terms. Many companies face bankruptcy; others think of moving abroad. A third of the population is considering emigration. The British and Dutch governments demand compensation, amounting to over 100% of Icelandic GDP, for their citizens who held high-interest deposits in local branches of Icelandic banks. Europe�s leaders urgently need to take step to prevent similar things from happening to small nations with big banking sectors.
  (tags: iceland europe finance)

Maybe I ought to write something about the budget agreement (do you get any cigars for predicting an agreement with the Danish People’s Party with school toilets as the main issue?), the Ombudsmand’s criticism of the Immigration Ministry (see delicious-links) or stuff like that, but the news that former Prime Minister Anker J�rgensen has moved out of his iconic 3-room apartment on Borgbjergvej and into a nursing home begged the question: How old do Danish Prime Ministers get?

As it is, Denmark has seen more than one PM die in office. If we start the counting in 1901, Stauning (69), Hans Hedtoft (52) and H.C. Hansen (53) died in office while Kampmann (65) was forced to retire at the age of 52 after suffering two heart-attacks. Kampmann also suffered from bipolar disorder even if this was only made public after his death.

Otherwise, the top-ten of longevity of Danish Prime Ministers from 1901 onward looks as follows:¹

1. M.P. Friis (PM 1920) 1857-1944, 86
2. Anker J�rgensen (PM 1972-73, 1975-82): 1922- , 86*
3. Erik Scavenius (PM 1943(-45) ) 1877-1962, 85
4. Poul Hartling (PM 1973-75) 1915-2000, 85
5. Klaus Berntsen (PM 1910-1913) 1844-1927, 82
6. N.Th. Neergaard (PM 1908-09, 1920-24) 1854-1936, 82
7. Knud Kristensen (PM 1945-47) 1880-1962, 81
8. C. Th. Zahle (PM 1909-10, 1913-20) 1866-1946, 80
9. Poul Schl�ter (PM 1982-1993) 1929-, 79*
10. J.C. Christensen (PM 1905-08) 1856-1930, 74

Messrs Liebe, Stauning, Eriksen, Baunsgaard, Madsen-Mygdal, Kampmann, Krag, Hansen and Hedtoft didn’t make it to 70.

The head of government since 1849 which survived the longest was J.B.S. Estrup (also the longest-serving head of government) who lived to the age of 88. C.M. Rotwitt was the first, and the youngest, head of government to die in office in 1860 at the age of 47.

1. I have controlled for date of birth and death in the years but not counted the number of days for the last year so Friis/J�rgensen, Scavenius/Hartling and Berntsen/Neergaard may change place [↩]