The Relationship between Height and Economic Development in Spain.An Historical Perspective

This paper investigates the relationship between height and economic development in the modern Spain. The relation is investigated using recently constructed times series with recruitment data of conscripts. We observed changes in average height along the analyzed period. These variations could be explained by different indicators of economic development such as for consumption of hygiene products, for deflator of private consumption, schooling rate, infant mortality and trade. We model human stature as a Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and we proceed to estimate a Vector Autoregressive Equilibrium Correction Model (VECqM) to quantify the height response to different changes in the different explanatory variables. The analysis shows that there is a long-run relationship between height, income, and other indicators of economic development in Spain as consumption of hygiene products, and the degree of openness.