White and Black Weight by Socioeconomic Status and Residence: Revaluating Nineteenth-Century Health during the Institutional Change to Free Labor

Scott Alan Carson

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), 2017, vol. 173, issue 4, 643-661

Abstract: Heights and body mass index (BMI) values are now well-accepted measures that reflect net nutrition during economic development and institutional change from bound to free labor. This study uses 19th-century weights instead of BMIs to measure factors associated with current net nutrition. Across the weight distribution and throughout the 19th century, white and black average weights decreased by 8.5 and 6.3 percent, respectively. Farmers and unskilled workers had positive weight returns associated with rural agricultural lifestyles. Weights in the Deep South were greater than in other regions within the U.S., indicating that while Southern infectious disease rates were high, Southern current net nutrition was better than elsewhere within the U.S.

JEL-codes: I1 J11 J71 N31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mohrsiebeck.com/en/article/white-and-b ... 45617x14812908932547 (text/html)
Fulltext access is included for subscribers to the printed version.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:mhr:jinste:urn:sici:0932-4569(201712)173:4_643:wabwbs_2.0.tx_2-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Mohr Siebeck GmbH & Co. KG, P.O.Box 2040, 72010 Tübingen, Germany

DOI: 10.1628/093245617X14812908932547

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) is currently edited by Gerd Mühlheußer and Bayer, Ralph-C

More articles in Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE) from Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Wolpert ().