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作者:St. John's University
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作者:University of Southern Denmark
摘要:In the 1950s the United States conducted scores of atmospheric nuclear tests at the Nevada Test Site. This article studies the effects of radioactive fallout from nuclear tests on agriculture in regions hundreds of miles from the NTS. While research has shown that this radioactive material posed a health risk near the NTS, little is known about the direct economic effects nuclear testing may have had. I find that fallout from nuclear tests adversely affected U.S. agricultural production, and t...
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作者:University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
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作者:Carnegie Mellon University; Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh
摘要:Focusing on the first half of the twentieth century, we explore the rise and fall of pellagra (a disease caused by inadequate niacin consumption) in the American South. We first consider the hypothesis that the South's monoculture in cotton undermined nutrition by displacing local food production. Consistent with this hypothesis, a difference in differences estimation shows that after the arrival of the boll weevil, food production in affected counties rose while cotton production and pellagra...
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作者:University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
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作者:Australian National University
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作者:Vanderbilt University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:After adjusting for sample-selection bias, I find a net decline in average stature of 0.64 inches in the birth cohorts of 1832-1860 in the United States. This result supports the veracity of the Antebellum Puzzle-a deterioration of health during early modern economic growth in the United States. However, this adjustment alters the trend in average stature in the same cohort range, validating concerns over bias in the historical heights literature. The adjustment is based on censuslinked milita...
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作者:Vrije Universiteit Brussel
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作者:Clemson University
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作者:Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
摘要:With more than 30 million people moving to North America during the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), governments feared that Europe was losing its most talented workers. Using new data from Ireland in the early twentieth century, I provide evidence to the contrary, showing that the sons of farmers and illiterate men were more likely to emigrate than their literate and skilled counterparts. Emigration rates were highest in poorer farming communities with stronger migrant networks. I construct...