The United States is often taken to be the exemplar of the benefits of a monetary union. Since 1788 Americans, with the exception of the Civil War years, have been able to buy and sell goods, travel, and invest within a vast area without ever having to be concerned about changes in exchange...

This paper examines variations in stature and the Body Mass Index (BMI) across space for the United States in 1917/18, using published data on the measurement of approximately 890,000 recruits for the American Army for World War I. It also connects those anthropometric measurements with an index...

This essay is the companion piece to about 550 individual data series on education to be included in the updated Historical Statistics of the United States, Millennial Edition (Cambridge University Press 2000, forthcoming). The essay reviews the broad outlines of U.S. educational history from...

Despite the significant research on aggregate trends in mortality and physical stature in the middle of the nineteenth century, little evidence on the individual-level characteristics associated with premature mortality has been presented. This essay describes a new project that links...