The use of height data to measure living standards is now a well-established method in the economic literature. While much is known about 19th century black legal and material conditions, less is known about how 19th century biological conditions were related to the physical environment and...

There has been no substantive mainstream research done on the economic history of gays and lesbians in the United States. I argue that the reason has more to do with the discipline?s standard of appropriate research methodology and use of concrete evidence than with an inherent bias against...

In recent years, important and headline-grabbing findings have emerged from research using individual income tax data for statistical purposes. Demand for these microdata, accessible under the tax administration authority of the Internal Revenue Code and through the IRS Statistics of Income...

BACKGROUND The narrowing of the sex gap in life-expectancy since the mid-1970s in the United States has been explained by women’s growing involvement in previously male-dominated risky behaviours, and in particular tobacco consumption. We argue that the narrowing sex-gap could additionally...