We depict and analyze wealth mobility in a national sample of nearly 4,000 households interviewed by the National Longitudinal Survey over a ten year period from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. A transition matrix, the Shorrocks measure, average decile position for various subgroups, and wealth...

This paper relies on birth and death lists from plantation records to investigate the causes of low birth weight and poor health of young slave children. The sources of deprivation can be traced to the fetal period. The slave work routine was arduous overall and particularily intense during...

Underenumeration of vital events is a problem familiar topeople who work with historical demographic records. This paper proposes a method for recovering information about neonatal mortality.The approach utilizes average heights of young children to predict the birth weight of American slaves....

This paper argues that latitude-specific investments in seeds and human capital provided an incentive for farmers to move along east-west lines. The incentives were greatest during the early and mid 1800s. Towards the end of the century migration patterns changed as farmers learned about farming...

As an aid to interpreting the results of height-by-age studies this paper investigates the relationship between average height and per capita income. The relationships among income, nutrition, medical care, and height at the individual level suggest that average height is nonlinearly related to...

Since 1995 approximately 325 publications on stature have appeared in the social sciences, which is more than a four-fold increase in the rate of production relative to the period 1977-1994. The expansion occurred in several areas, but especially within economics, indicating that heights are now...

For over a quarter century anthropometric historians have struggled to identify and measure the numerous factors that affect adult stature, which depends upon diet, disease and physical activity from conception to maturity. I simplify this complex problem by assessing nutritional status in a...

Lack of evidence has been the major obstacle to understanding trends and differences in human welfare over the millennia. This paper explains and applies methods that are obscure to most academics and essentially unknown to the general public. A millennial perspective is best obtained from...

Economists and other scholars have long sought to measure and analyze long-term trends and differences in social performance. Average stature supplements and lengthens data series on traditional measures of life expectancy and real GDP per capita. This paper presents a methodology for using...

This essay places the debate over human welfare during industrialization in the context of very long-term economic developments by examining an important aspect of living standards--health and nutrition--since the Middle Ages. I use average stature determined from military records along with a...