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...

The Antebellum Puzzle' describes the situation of declining stature and rising mortality in the three decades prior to the American Civil War (1861-65). It is labeled a puzzle, since this period was one of rapid economic growth and development in the United States. Much of the debate regarding...

Antebellum critics of slavery argued that it was responsible for the relative inefficiency of free southern farms. We examine this issue, employing a stochastic production function, which allows us to distinguish between technological superiority and technical inefficiency, and controlling for...

The material contained herein is supplementary to the article named in the title and published in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Volume 88, Number 1, February 2006.

Standard economic indicators suggest that the United States experienced long-run economic growth throughout the nineteenth century. However, biological indicators, including human stature, offer a different picture, rising early in the century, falling (on average) mid-century, and rising again...

The linearity of the U.S. hog-corn cycle has been questioned by <link rid="b4">Chavas and Holt (1991)</link>. Even so, attempts have not been made to model the potential nonlinear dynamics in the hog-corn cycle by using regime-switching models. One popular alternative is <link rid="b43">Teräsvirta's</link> smooth transition autoregressive...