TY - JOUR AU - Fogel,Robert W. AU - Engerman,Stanley L. AU - Floud,Roderick AU - Steckel,Richard H. AU - Trussell,James TI - Changes in American and British Stature Since the Mid-Eighteenth Century: A Prelimanary Report on the Usefulness of Data on Height... JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 890 PY - 1982 Y2 - May 1982 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0890 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w0890.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Robert W. Fogel Director, Center for Population Economics University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business 5807 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Suite 367 Chicago, IL 60637 Tel: 773/702-7709 Fax: 773/702-2901 E-Mail: rwf@cpe.uchicago.edu Stanley L. Engerman Department of Economics University of Rochester Rochester, NY 14627-0156 Tel: 585/275-3165 Fax: 585/256-2309 E-Mail: enge@troi.cc.rochester.edu Roderick Floud Dean, School of Advanced Study University of London Senate House Malet Street London WC1E 7HU UK Tel: 44-207-8628658 Fax: 44-207-8628657 E-Mail: roderick.floud@sas.ac.uk Richard H. Steckel Department of Economics Ohio State University 410 Arps Hall, 1945 North High Street Columbus, OH 43210-1172 Tel: 614/292-5008 Fax: 614/292-3906 E-Mail: steckel.1@osu.edu James Trussell AB - This paper is a progress report on the usefulness of data on physical height for the analysis of long-ten changes in the level of nutrition and health on economic, social, and demographic behavior. It is based on a set of samples covering the U.S. and several other nations over the years from 1750 to the present. The preliminary results indicate that native-born. American Revolution, but there were long periods of declining nutrition and height during the 19th century. Similar cycling has been established for England. A variety of factors, including crop mix, urbanization, occupation, intensity of labor, and immigration affected the level of height and nutrition, although the relative importance of these factors has changed over time. There is evidence that nutrition affected labor productivity. In one of the samples individuals who were one standard deviation above the mean height (holding weight per inch of height constant) were about 8% more productive than individuals one standard deviation below the mean height. Another finding is that death did not choose people at random. Analysis of data for Trinidad indicates that the annual death rate for the shortest quintile of males was more than twice as great as for the tallest quintile of males. ER -