We trace the introduction and use of anthropometric indicators (height, weight, body mass index) into development and labor economics in the late 1970s. These biological markers are used as a proxy measure for health human capital, the degree of poverty or malnutrition, net nutritional status,...

We propose a model of food allocation in an economy in which property rights exist in human beings. We assume that a slave-owner allocates food over the slave's lifetime so as to maximise his own wealth. The slave's productive capacity is determined endogenously by food consumption. Food...