Cultural and Genetic Influences on the "Biological Standard of Living"

Matthias Blum

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History, 2013, vol. 46, issue 1, 19-30

Abstract: This study suggests an improvement of a popular measure of living standards, namely the biological standard of living . One influence on it is a population's consumption pattern. Since there are different dietary patterns all over the world, researchers estimate the influences of national diets on final average male height. These habits are predominantly related to income, but also to genetics, cultural history, and decisions regarding whether to trade or consume high-quality foodstuffs. Systematic differences are found when analyzing protein-consumption habits among 51 countries between the 1960s and the 1980s. The author calculates metric correction values which can facilitate international comparisons of male average height. While the proposed correction values make a little difference on average, they can be valuable in a comparison of countries with markedly different dietary patterns.

Date: 2013
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (9)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/01615440.2012.703952 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:taf:vhimxx:v:46:y:2013:i:1:p:19-30

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/vhim20

DOI: 10.1080/01615440.2012.703952

Access Statistics for this article

Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History is currently edited by J. David Hacker and Kenneth Sylvester

More articles in Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().