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We re-estimate the height of Englishmen using the sample originally collected by Roderick Floud. We merge the samples from the army and the Royal Marines by weighting the observations in order to reflect the proportions of servicemen in the two branches of the military. In addition to truncated regression, we use cubic spline functions in order to estimate the trend in the physical stature of Englishmen. The results indicate that a very rapid decline in height of c. 1.6 cm per decade accompanied the onset of the industrial and demographic revolutions, implying that the nutritional status of the population deteriorated considerably as it throughout the European Continent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the threat of a Malthusian crisis in Great Britain in the 18th century. Empirical evidence that physical stature declined in the course of the century throughout Europe; Inference that the decline in wages and the trend in heights were related to the decline in the marginal product of labor; Issue over the height of indentured servants; Timing of the diminution in height.

The article focuses on a reply by the authors to a comment by economist Donald N. McCloskey on their paper "Anachronistic Economics: Grain Storage in Medieval England," that appeared in the 1991 issue of the journal "Economic History Review." McCloskey suggests that the main purpose of this paper was to show that the cost of storage was "formidable" in medieval England. The point was to get a rough idea of storage cost (not storage amounts) in which he had only a "desultory" interest. He devotes the first two sections of his paper to the proposition that the storage amounts were small: (1) the direct evidence that storage was small and (2) using prices to show that storage was small. He spells out the significance of interest rates in subsequent sections. He says that the cost was high because the interest rate was high and the significance of high medieval interest rates. His conclusion reiterates his opening premise, namely that the cost of storage and the rate of interest were shockingly high. Stores of grain were therefore very low.

The article discusses the cliometric controversy over the extent and nature of grain storage in medieval England. The controversy originated from the thesis that open-field agriculture was brought about by rational risk-averse farmers, to insure themselves against insufficient harvests. Inventories had depended not only on the rate of interest, but also on income during that time. To the extent that most income was generated in agriculture, the maximizing strategy for storing or selling grain in such an environment must have depended in the first instance on the average per caput output of grains (as well as on its variance), and on consumption, and not primarily on the rate of interest on alternative investments. Thus, the competing hypothesis, that the quantity of grain held in storage was a function of output (consumption) should be given equal consideration. In addition, one must note that grain stocks are not quite like any other form of investment. In contrast to other assets, they are an important source of nutrients.

Comments on an article which argued that from the 16th through the 18th centuries English laborers allocated only about half of their income to the purchase of food. Criticisms on the procedure used in estimating the food budget of English laborers.