Aims:Press freedom around the globe has deteriorated over the past decade, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper explores the effect of press freedom, as a cornerstone of democracy, on life expectancy.Methods:Exploring cross-country data, we use the ordinary least square method to estimate the association between press freedom and life expectancy. In addition, we adopt three novel instrumental variables to explore the causal relationship.Results:Our estimations indicate that a freer press leads to higher life expectancy, and the effect exists independently of the level of democracy. In addition, the effect of continuous exposure to press freedom is stronger than sporadic free press status. The results are robust to measurement errors, influential outliers, and country-specific heterogeneity.Conclusions:This study reveals the fundamental role of press freedom in promoting public health that was previously underexplored. Therefore, enhancing freedom of expression can be an effective tool to address three of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, that is, reduce under-five mortality, improve maternal health, and combat HIV/AIDS. JEL:I1 H7 D02

中文翻译：

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压制媒体会缩短寿命：新闻自由对预期寿命影响的跨国证据

目标：全球新闻自由在过去十年中不断恶化，特别是在新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 大流行期间。本文探讨了作为民主基石的新闻自由对预期寿命的影响。方法：通过探索跨国数据，我们使用普通最小二乘法来估计新闻自由与预期寿命之间的关联。此外，我们采用了三个新颖的工具变量来探索因果关系。结果：我们的估计表明，更自由的新闻界会导致更高的预期寿命，并且这种效应的存在与民主水平无关。此外，持续接触新闻自由的效果比零星的新闻自由状态更强。结果对于测量误差、有影响的异常值和特定国家的异质性是稳健的。结论：这项研究揭示了新闻自由在促进公共卫生方面的基本作用，而这一作用以前未被充分探讨。因此，加强言论自由可以成为实现联合国千年发展目标中的三项目标的有效工具，即降低五岁以下儿童死亡率、改善孕产妇健康和防治艾滋病毒/艾滋病。凝胶：I1 H7 D02