On the Puzzling Cycle in the Biological Standard of Living: The Case of Antebellum Georgia

Komlos, John; Coclanis, Peter A.

doi:10.1006/exeh.1997.0680

Cited by 123 publications

(84 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…The tallest 16-year old Marine Society boys, born in the 1820s, were on average 155 cm tall, shorter than the 3 rd centile of the modern US height distribution of 160 cm. Georgia convicts were the tallest and the slaves the shortest, with the difference between them at age 17 of about 5.2 cm, but northern white apprentices were only 1.6 cm taller than slaves, while free blacks were merely 1.1 cm taller than slaves (Komlos and Coclanis 1997). Freed slaves were but 3.5 cm shorter than the average northern soldier.…”

Section: Figures 15 and 16 About Herementioning

confidence: 84%

On English Pygmies and giants: the physical stature of English youth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Komlos¹

Research in Economic History

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Abstract:The physical stature of lower-and upper-class English youth are compared to one another and to their European and North American counterparts. The height gap between the rich and poor was the greatest in England, reaching 22 cm at age 16. The poverty-stricken English children were shorter for their age than any other European or North American group so far discovered, while the English rich were the tallest in their time: only 2.5 cm shorter than today's US standards. Height of the poor declined in the late-18 th century, and again in the 1830s and 1840s conforming to the general European pattern, while the height of the wealthy tended rather to increase until the 1840s and then levelled off.Acknowledgment: I appreciate comments from

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Section: Figures 15 and 16 About Herementioning

confidence: 84%

On English Pygmies and giants: the physical stature of English youth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

Komlos¹

Research in Economic History

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“…The next study pertained to southern convicts; until then there was not much research on white Southerners (Komlos & Coclanis 1997). It documented that the trend in the height of Southern whites followed the northern pattern, so that the Antebellum Puzzle pertained to them as well.…”

Section: Height and Prices Of Slavesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Source: Steckel (1995), Komlos and Coclanis (1997). Upper South Georgia Convicts Slave Prices in the 1830s and 1840s responded to the changes in relative prices, whereas slaves who were not allowed to do so, did not" (Figure 21) (p. 211).…”

Section: Komlos Did Not Consider Inventories (P 196) In His Responsementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Several independent sources of evidence have verified what is commonly called the 'antebellum paradox' [sic: puzzle] (Komlos, 1996;Komlos and Coclanis, 1997;Carson, 2008b;Maloney and Carson, 2008), or the decline in height and life expectancy in the midst of vigorous economic growth, and research now focuses on its possible causes. Candidates include migration and the spread of disease; growing inequality; the appearance of business cycles that increased the nutritional vulnerability of the poor; rising food prices; the emergence of public schools that exposed young children to dangerous pathogens; the rise of commercial farming, which tempted farm families to trade farm surpluses for manufactured goods; the Civil War; and urbanization" (p. 12-13).…”

Section: Blacks Whitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A Three-Decade 'Kuhnian' History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the Shrinking of the US Population at the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

Komlos

2012

SSRN Journal

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In 1979, when anthropometric history was still in its infancy, Robert Fogel and collaborators reported that the height of the US male white population began to decline quite unexpectedly around the birth cohorts of 1830. This was quite a conundrum on account of the fact that according to conventional economic theory nutritional status was not expected to diminish at the outset of modern economic growth, i.e., at a time when incomes were growing robustly.Although many hypotheses were offered, not until 1987 was the comprehensive solution to the puzzle offered that the height decline was due primarily to a decline in food consumption: agricultural productivity did not keep pace with rapid population growth and urbanization.However, it took a third of a century for a Kuhnian paradigm shift to occur until most of the participants in the debate accepted the model elucidated by Komlos in 1987.JEL: B20, B25, N00

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“…1 Some important contributions to this «Anthropometric History» are Fogel (1994); Floud et al (1990Floud et al ( ), (1993aFloud et al ( ) and (1993b; Harris (1994); Komlos (1989Komlos ( ), (1993a, and (1993b); Komlos and Coclanis (1997); Sandberg andSteckel (1988) and(1997); Steckel (1995); Weir (1993). In particular for Spain, see Coll andQuiroga (1994), Martínez Carrión (1994) and Quiroga (2001).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Economic Development and the Quality of Life of Children

Delajara

2004

RHE / JILAEH

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RESUMENLos estudios históricos muestran que el crecimiento secular de la estatura media de los niños europeos occidentales comenzó en 1850 y fue precedido por cien años de declive y estancamiento. Conjeturamos que la caída inicial en las estaturas está relacionada con la transición demográfica y mostramos que una extensión del modelo neoclásico de crecimiento económico puede explicar el fenómeno. Verificamos que las predicciones del modelo se cumplen en el presente para un corte transversal de países y encontramos que, en países con bajo ingreso por habitante, la estatura media de los niños está negativamente asociada con el ingreso per capita y con la fecundidad. Como ejercicio final, nos preguntamos si estas estimaciones explican el cambio en la estatura media observado en el último siglo y medio. 14 ABSTRACTHistorical studies show that the average height of Western European children began its secular growth in 1850 only after a period of decline and stagnation which had started around 1750. We argue that the initial downturn in heights is related to the demographic transition, and show that an extension of the neoclassical model of economic growth can explain the observed phenomena. We test whether the predictions of the model hold for a cross-section of contemporary countries, and we find that stature is indeed negatively associated with income per capita and fertility for countries with an income per capita below a given threshold. As a final exercise, we ask whether these cross-country estimates explain the improvement in children's height observed in the last hundred and fifty years.

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On the Puzzling Cycle in the Biological Standard of Living: The Case of Antebellum Georgia

Cited by 123 publications

References 21 publications

On English Pygmies and giants: the physical stature of English youth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

On English Pygmies and giants: the physical stature of English youth in the late 18th and early 19th centuries

A Three-Decade 'Kuhnian' History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the Shrinking of the US Population at the Onset of Modern Economic Growth

Economic Development and the Quality of Life of Children

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