This study analyses the physical stature of runaway apprentices and military deserters based on advertisements collected from 18th-century newspapers, in order to explore the biological welfare of colonial and early-national Americans. The results indicate that heights declined somewhat at...

We trace the introduction of anthropometric indicators into development and labor economics in the late 1970s.

We propose a model of food allocation in an economy in which property rights exist in human beings. We assume that a slave-owner allocates food over the slave's lifetime so as to maximise his own wealth. The slave's productive capacity is determined endogenously by food consumption. Food...