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 frontier's...

A population's average stature reflects its cumulative net nutrition and provides important insight when more traditional measures for economic well-being is scarce or unreliable. Heights on the US Central Plains did not experience the antebellum paradox experienced in Eastern urban areas, and...

Using data for six OECD countries, this paper studies the effect of macroeconomic conditions on the mortality index kt in the well-known Lee-Carter model. Significant correlations are found with real GDP growth rates in Australia, Canada, and the United States, and with unemployment rate changes...

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables with the example of age-specific mortality in the U.S., building on the Lee-Carter approach and extending it in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables underlying...

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables, using the example of age-specific mortality in the United States, building on the LeeCarter approach and extending it in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables...

Previous work has demonstrated the potential for wheat market integration between the US and the UK before the 'first era of globalization' in the second half of the nineteenth century. It was however frequently interrupted by policy and 'exogenous' events such as war. This paper adds Canada to...

Anaerobic digestion technology uses microorganisms to consume waste and produce methane gas, which serves as a source of clean renewable energy. Although anaerobic digestion is widely used for both purposes throughout the rest of the world, it is rarely applied in the United States. This Article...

Forecasting based pricing of Weather Derivatives (WDs) is a new approach in valuation of contingent claims on nontradable underlyings. Standard techniques are based on historical weather data. Forward-looking information such as meteorological forecasts or the implied market price of risk (MPR)...

The links between adult height and socioeconomic-political marginality are controversial. We test hypotheses by comparing secular trends between two groups of USA adult male citizens born during 1886-1930: (a) 9805 men surveyed in Puerto Rico during 1965 and (b) 3064 non-Hispanic Whites surveyed...