Transportation and Health in the Antebellum United States 1820-1847

Ariell Zimran

No 24943, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: I study the impact of transportation on health in the rural US, 1820–1847. Measuring health by average stature, I find that greater transportation linkage, as measured by market access, in a cohort’s county-year of birth had an adverse impact on its health. A one-standard deviation increase in market access reduced average stature by 0.14 inches, and rising market access over the study period can explain 37 percent of the contemporaneous decline in average stature, known as the Antebellum Puzzle. I find evidence that transportation affected health by increasing population density, leading to a worse epidemiological environment.

JEL-codes: I15 N31 N71 O18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018-08
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea, nep-his and nep-tre
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Published as Ariell Zimran, 2020. "Transportation and Health in the Antebellum United States, 1820–1847," The Journal of Economic History, vol 80(3), pages 670-709.

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