Heights and body mass index values (BMIs) are now well accepted measures that reflect net nutrition during economic development and institutional change. This study uses 19th century weights instead of BMIs to measure factors associated with current net nutrition. Across the weight distribution...

When traditional methods for measuring economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, heights and BMIs are now well accepted measurements that represent biological conditions during economic development. Weight, after controlling for height, is an alternative measure to BMI for current net...

Much has been written about the modern obesity epidemic, and historical BMIs are low compared to their modern counterparts. However, interpreting BMI variation is difficult because BMIs increase when weight increases or when stature decreases, and the two have different implications for human...

A population’s weight conditioned on height reflects its current net nutrition and demonstrates health variation during economic development. This study builds on the use of weight as a measure for current net nutrition and uses a difference-in-decompositions technique to illustrate how black...

When traditional measures for material and economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now widely accepted measures that represent cumulative and current net nutrition in development studies. However, as the ratio of weight to height, BMI does not fully...

The body mass index (BMI) is the primary means of classifying obesity and reflects a complex set of interactions related to the institution of marriage and household characteristics. There is an inverse relationship between BMI and height, and height reflects the cumulative price of net...

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner proposed that America’s Western frontier was an economic ‘safety-valve,’ a place where settlers could migrate when conditions in eastern states and Europe crystalized against their upward economic mobility. However, recent studies suggest the Western...

Assumptions about explanatory variables and errors are central in regression analysis. For example, the well-known method of ordinary least squares yields consistent and efficient estimators if the underlying error terms are independently, identically, and normally distributed. Additionally, the...

Little research exists on the body mass index values of 19th century Americans of European descent. Using a new BMI data set and robust statistics, between 1860 and 1880, BMIs decreased across the distribution; however, after 1880, BMIs in the highest quantiles increased, while those in lower...

Using a new source of 19th century state prison records, this study contrasts the biological living conditions of comparable US African-American and white female statures during economic development. Black and white female statures varied regionally, and white Southeastern and black Southwestern...