Peer and cohort effects are important in health economics, and obesity may be related to social relationships, where obese individuals interact with other obese individuals. There were significant 19th century cohort effects, where BMIs were related to the cohort that an individual belonged....

Communities urbanize when the net benefits to urbanization exceed rural areas. Body mass, height, and weight are biological welfare measures that reflect the net difference between calories consumed and calories required for work and to withstand the physical environment. Across the United...

When other measures for material welfare are scarce or unreliable, the use of average stature and body mass index (BMI) values is common. BMI reflects the current difference between calories consumed, calories required for work, and to withstand the physical environment. This study evaluates...

When other measures for material conditions are scarce or unreliable, the use of height is now common to evaluate economic conditions during economic development. However, throughout US economic development, height data by gender have been slow to emerge. Throughout the late 19th and early 20th...

When other measures for economic welfare are scarce or unreliable, the use of biological measures are now standard in economics. This study uses late 19th and early 20th century BMI, statures, and weight to assess how net nutrition accumulated to women and men during US economic development....