Many countries are currently increasing the advanced funding of their public pension systems to improve their sustainability in the face of rapidly aging populations. When pensions are funded, the issue of asset allocation becomes of paramount importance. Standard portfolio selection theory...

In recent years, the share of elderly in the total population is increasing around the world. Rising proportionally are claims on public pension systems and health care expenditures. This places extra pressure on government budgets. As a result, countries which implement only pay-as-you-go...

Examines the height of Habsburg Soldiers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and argues that the society was facing a Malthusian crisis, which induced the Monarch to enact many institutional changes in order to save the society from disaster. While living standards declined, the...

The discovery of the New World enabled the nutritional status of the European populations to be maintained sufficiently to avoid a major Malthusian catastrophe as in prior centuries.

Considers the development of the European economies from the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution to argue that the accumulation of physical and human capital played a major role in the escape from the Malthusian trap.

Abstract: Examines the Physical Stature of The elite students attending the École Polytechnique military academy in the Early Nineteenth century. Concludes that their height was some 7 cm greater than that of average French youth their age.

Examines the height of students who attended The Citadel, the military academy in Charleston in the late-19th and the first half of the 20th century. Shows a long stagnation in the biological standard of living in this part of the South until the 1910s, when it began to increase substantially.

Examines the Physical Stature of The elite students attending the École Polytechnique military academy in the Early Nineteenth century. Concludes that their height was some 7 cm greater than that of average French youth their age.

Examines the height of runaway indentured and convict servants in Colonial America. Finds that heights decreased substantially at the middle of the 18th century in keeping with many other findings. The inference is that an incipient Malthusian crisis was threatening the United Kingdom, as it did...