TY  - JOUR
AU  - Craig,Lee A.
AU  - Weiss,Thomas
TI  - Nutritional Status and Agricultural Surpluses in the Antebellum United States
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 99
PY  - 1997
Y2  - April 1997
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0099
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0099.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Lee A. Craig
Department of Economics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8110
Tel: 919/515-2870
Fax: 919/515-5613
E-Mail: lee_craig@ncsu.edu

Thomas J. Weiss
Department of Economics
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS  66045
Tel: 785/840-6878
Fax:  785/864-5270
E-Mail: t-weiss@ku.edu
AB  - We model the relationship between local agricultural surpluses, nutritional status, and height, and we test the hypothesis that adult height is positively correlated with the local production of nutrition in infancy.  We test the hypothesis on two samples of Union Army recruits - one consisting of white recruits and the other black recruits.  The white sample shows that a local protein surplus one standard deviation above the mean yielded an additional 0.10 inches in adult height, and a similar deviation in surplus calorie production yielded an additional 0.20 inches.  For blacks, however, the effect was probably negligible.
ER  -