John Komlos

John Komlos (born 28. Dec. 1944 in Budapest, Hungary) is an American economic historian at the University of Munich where he is professor of economics and chair of economic history. In the 1980s Komlos was instrumental in the emergence of anthropometric history, the study of the effect of economic development on human biological outcomes such as physical stature.

Career Komlos received a Ph.D in history and in Economics at the University of Chicago where he was influenced by the Nobel-Prize winning economic historian Robert Fogel to research intensively the economic history of human physical stature. Komlos named this new discipline Anthropometric history in 1989. He was a fellow at the Carolina Population Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1984-86). Komlos taught at such institutions as the University of Vienna, Duke University, the Vienna University of Economics, University of St. Gallen, and North Carolina State University. He has been teaching at the University of Munich since 1992. He is the founding editor of Economics and Human Biology in 2003, thereby creating a new field which focuses on how economic developoment interact with biological process.

Selected Publications Books

• Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy: An Anthropometric History, Princeton University Press: 1989.
• (Ed.), Stature, Living Standards, and Economic Development: Essays in Anthropometric History, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1994.
• (Ed.), Classics of Anthropometric History: A Selected Anthology, with Timothy Cuff. St. Katharinen, Germany: Scripta Mercaturae, 1998.

Articles

• “From the Tallest to (One of) the Fattest: The Enigmatic Fate of the Size of the American Population in the Twentieth Century,” with Marieluise Baur, Economics and Human Biology (2004) 2, no. 1: 57-74.
• “An Anthropometric History of Early-Modern France, 1666-1766,” in collaboration with Michel Hau and Nicolas Bourguinat, European Review of Economic History (2003), 7: August, 159-189.
• “The Biological Standard of Living in the Two Germanies,” with Peter Kriwy German Economic Review 4 (2003) 4: 493-507;
• “Access to Food and the Biological Standard of Living: Perspectives on the Nutritional Status of Native Americans,” American Economic Review, 91, 1 (March 2003): 252-255.
• "Optimal Food Allocation in a Slave Economy," with Ray Rees, Ngo Van Long, and Ulrich Woitek, Journal of Population Economics 16 (2003): 21-36.
• "Shrinking in a Growing Economy? The Mystery of Physical Stature during the Industrial Revolution," Journal of Economic History 58 (1998) 3: 779-802.
• "On the 'Puzzling' Antebellum Cycle of the Biological Standard of Living: the Case of Georgia," with Peter Coclanis, Explorations in Economic History, 34 (Oct. 1997) 4:433-59.
• "Anomalies in Economic History: Reflections on the 'Antebellum Puzzle'," Journal of Economic History 56 (March, 1996): 202-214;
• "Nutrition and Economic Development in Post-Reconstruction South Carolina: an Anthropometric Approach," with Peter Coclanis, Social Science History 19 (1995): 91-116.
• "The Secular Trend in the Biological Standard of Living in the United Kingdom, 1730-1860," Economic History Review 46 (Feb. 1993): 115-44.
• "Estimating Trends in Historical Heights," with Joo Han Kim, Historical Methods 23 (1990): 116-120.
• "Height and Social Status in Eighteenth-Century Germany," Journal of Interdisciplinary History 20 (1990): 607-621.
• "The Height and Weight of West Point Cadets: Dietary Change in Antebellum America," Journal of Economic History 47 (1987): 897-927.
• "Stature and Nutrition in the Habsburg Monarchy: The Standard of Living and Economic Development," American Historical Review 90 (1985): 1149-1161.

External Links:

• Komlos’s work has been featured by Burkhard Bilger in “The Height Gap Europeans are getting taller; why aren’t we?” The New Yorker, April 5, 2004, pp 38-45. http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040405fa_fact
• Guest on National Public Radio: The Connection: http://www.theconnection.org/shows/2004/04/20040405_b_main.asp
• Economics and Human Biology: [www.elsevier.com/locate/ehb]
• Information on RePec: http://ideas.repec.org/e/pko37.html
• Home page: [1]