The paper considers the case for the use of data on weight and height of children to assess living standards and public policy, contrasting them with monetized measures of welfare based on household incomes or expenditures. Data on child anthropometry are then used from Uzbekistan, the most...

Using 1989 household survey data, the authors investigate large differences in poverty measured with a conventional all-Union per capita income line between Uzbekistan, the largest Central Asian republic of the former U.S.S.R., and Ukraine as an example of a European republic. The authors show...