 A Substitution Effect as a Possible Cause for the Antebellum Heights PuzzleShawn Osell ()
Economics Bulletin, 2018, vol. 38, issue 4, 1889-1904 Abstract: The first half of the nineteenth century was a time of significant economic growth in the United States. Economic growth generally coincides with increasing real wages and better health and nutrition. It is also common to see increasing stature of a nation over time as a result of economic development. Ironically, the antebellum period was a time of decreasing average stature. This contradiction is referred to as the antebellum puzzle. The literature regarding this puzzle offers some possible explanations. We focus on one possible hypothesis for the antebellum puzzle. Changes in Nutrition and Diet may have resulted from a transformation in the composition of US economic production leading to a temporary decrease in overall stature. This paper examines if there was a substitution effect between manufactured goods and agricultural output as the US developed during the antebellum period. Because of the lack of data about nutrition during the 1800s, stature is used as a proxy to reflect one's diet in the early stages of life. Our research finds that a substitution effect between manufactured goods and agriculture output may have contributed to the antebellum puzzle. Keywords: Antebellum; stature; substitution effect. (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ebl:ecbull:eb-18-00052 Access Statistics for this article More articles in Economics Bulletin from AccessEcon |
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