When traditional measures for economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, stature and the body mass index (BMI) are now widely-accepted measures that reflect economic conditions. However, little work exists for late 19th and early 20th century women's BMIs in the US and how they varied with...

The smallpox epidemic of 1781–82 in the Hudson Bay region is said to have devastated the native population, causing mortality of at least 50%. We reassess this claim using a four-pronged approach. First, we total smallpox deaths reported by two fur trading posts that were in the midst of the...

The fundamental problem in the field of the economics of innovation is which economic subjects are the sources of radical innovations and high technological performances. The study here confronts this problem by developing a theoretical framework underpinned in the concept of purposeful system...

This study analyzes trends and determinants of the height of men born in the 100 largest American urban areas during the second half of the nineteenth century and compares them with heights of the rural population. In this sample of 21,704 US Army recruits, there is an urban height penalty of up...

Frame and Carpenter 1979 analysed the pattern of international research collaboration among scientific fields in 1970s. Starting from this pioneering work, this paper investigates international collaborations over 1997-2012 and compares the critical results with earlier studies to detect the...

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...

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...

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...

When traditional measures for health and economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, height and the body mass index (BMI) are now well-accepted measures that reflect net nutrition during economic development. To date, there is no study that compares 19th century BMIs of immigrants and US natives....

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...