IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/500.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Comment on Oxley’s "Seat of death and terror"

Author

Listed:
  • Leunig, Tim
  • Voth, Hans-Joachim

Abstract

Oxley finds that smallpox consistently reduced heights, but that the fall was not statistically significant outside London or for juvenile Londoners. We demonstrate that inappropriate subdivision of the data into small samples explains the lack of significance she obtains. Further analysis of Oxley's data shows that smallpox was a statistically significant cause of stunting, and that there were no differences in the effect by area. Juveniles exhibit greater stunting than adults, leading us to conclude that smallpox was not a proxy for overcrowding. That smallpox reduced height is important for anthropometric history: heights capture the effect of a truly awful disease.

Suggested Citation

  • Leunig, Tim & Voth, Hans-Joachim, 2006. "Comment on Oxley’s "Seat of death and terror"," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 500, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:500
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/500/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hans-Joachim Voth & Timothy Leunig, 1996. "Did smallpox reduce height? Stature and the standard of living in London, 1770-1873," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 49(3), pages 541-560, August.
    2. Feinstein, Charles H., 1998. "Pessimism Perpetuated: Real Wages and the Standard of Living in Britain during and after the Industrial Revolution," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 58(3), pages 625-658, September.
    3. Roderick Floud & Kenneth Wachter & Annabel Gregory, 1990. "Height, Health, and History: Nutritional Status in the United Kingdom, 1750-1980," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number flou90-1, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carson, Scott Alan, 2011. "Was the 19th century stature-insolation relationship similar across independent samples? Evidence from soldiers and prisoners," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 199-207, April.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bodenhorn, Howard & Guinnane, Timothy & Mroz, Thomas, 2013. "Problems of Sample-selection Bias in the Historical Heights Literature: A Theoretical and Econometric Analysis," Center Discussion Papers 148749, Yale University, Economic Growth Center.
    2. Bodenhorn, Howard & Guinnane, Timothy W. & Mroz, Thomas A., 2017. "Sample-Selection Biases and the Industrialization Puzzle," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(1), pages 171-207, March.
    3. Howard Bodenhorn & Timothy Guinnane & Thomas Mroz, 2014. "Caveat Lector: Sample Selection in Historical Heights and the Interpretation of Early Industrializing Economies," NBER Working Papers 19955, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Galofré-Vilà, Gregori, 2018. "Growth and maturity: A quantitative systematic review and network analysis in anthropometric history," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 107-118.
    5. Jacobs, Jan & Tassenaar, Vincent, 2004. "Height, income, and nutrition in the Netherlands: the second half of the 19th century," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 2(2), pages 181-195, June.
    6. Robert C. Allen, 2015. "The high wage economy and the industrial revolution: a restatement," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 68(1), pages 1-22, February.
    7. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Timothy Leunig & Hans-Joachim Voth, 2001. "Smallpox really did reduce height: a reply to Razzell," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 54(1), pages 110-114, February.
    9. Timothy Leunig & Hans‐Joachim Voth, 2006. "Comment on ‘Seat of Death and Terror’1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 59(3), pages 607-616, August.
    10. Blum, Matthias & McLaughlin, Eoin, 2019. "Living standards and inequality in the industrial revolution: Evidence from the height of University of Edinburgh students in the 1830s," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 185-192.
    11. Bernard Harris, 2021. "Anthropometric history and the measurement of wellbeing," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 19(1), pages 91-123.
    12. repec:dgr:rugccs:200218 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Ann Carlos & Frank D. Lewis, 2010. "Property Rights, Standards Of Living, And Economic Growth: Western Canadian Cree," Working Paper 1232, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    14. Deborah Oxley, 2003. "‘The seat of death and terror’: urbanization, stunting, and smallpox," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 56(4), pages 623-656, November.
    15. Bernard Harris & Roderick Floud & Sok Chul Hong, 2014. "Food for Thought: Comparing Estimates of Food Availability in England and Wales, 1700-1914," NBER Working Papers 20177, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Federico, Giovanni, 2003. "Heights, calories and welfare: a new perspective on Italian industrialization, 1854-1913," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 1(3), pages 289-308, December.
    17. Jacobs, Jan & Tassenaar, Vincent, 2002. "Height, income, nutrition, and smallpox in the Netherlands: the (second half of the) 19th century," CCSO Working Papers 200218, University of Groningen, CCSO Centre for Economic Research.
    18. Bernard Harris & Roderick Floud & Robert W. Fogel & Sok Chul Hong, 2010. "Diet, Health and Work Intensity in England and Wales, 1700-1914," NBER Working Papers 15875, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. repec:dgr:rugsom:03c35 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Ramon Ramon-Muñoz & Josep-Maria Ramon-Muñoz, 2015. "Height and Industrialisation in a City in Catalonia during the Nineteenth Century," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2015/334, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    21. Roger Middleton & Peter Wardley, 1990. "Information technology in economic and social history: the computer as philosopher's stone or Pandora's box?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 43(4), pages 667-696, November.
    22. Beard, N.F., 2014. "Feeding the British Public: a Centenary Review of Food and Drink Manufacturing," Centre for Agricultural Strategy - Papers and Reports 337544, University of Reading.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:500. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.