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...

Little research has been done on the body mass index values of 19th century US African-Americans and whites. This paper uses 19th century US prison records to demonstrate that although modern BMIs have increased in the 20th century, 19th century black and white BMIs were distributed...

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in economic history. Moreover, a number of core findings in the literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence remains thin. One...

The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic history literature. Moreover, a number of core findings in this literature are widely agreed upon. There are still some populations, places, and times, however, for which anthropometric evidence...

Can attitudes towards minorities, an important cultural trait, be changed? We show that the presence of African American soldiers in the U.K. during World War II reduced anti-minority prejudice, a result of the positive interactions which took place between soldiers and the local population. The...

Modern labor studies consider the relationship between wages and biological markers. A relevant historical question is the relationship between occupational status and biological markers. This study demonstrates that 19th century stature and BMIs were significant in Texas occupation selection;...

We empirically test the relationship between hiring discrimination and labour market tightness at the level of the occupation. To this end, we conduct a correspondence test in the youth labour market. In line with theoretical expectations, we find that, compared to natives, candidates with a...

Discrimination in access to public services can act as a major obstacle towards addressing racial inequality. We examine whether racial discrimination exists in access to a wide spectrum of public services in the US. We carry out an email correspondence study in which we pose simple queries to...

We present a theoretical model of moral hazard and adverse selection in an imperfectly competitive loans market that is suitable for application to Africa. The model allows for variation in both the level of contract enforcement (depending on the quality of governance) and the degree of market...

We investigate the determinants and extent of labor market discrimination toward people with physical disabilities using a large scale field experiment. Applications were randomly sent to 1477 private firms advertising open positions. We find that average callback rates of disabled and...