Whether anthropometric-mortality risk relationships as found in present day populations also characterized past populations is disputed. This article finds U-shaped body mass index (BMI)-mortality risk relationships among nineteenth-century men that were similar to such relationships as found in twentieth-century men. No relationship between height and mortality could be detected. This article infers from the socioeconomic homogeneity of the sample that the BMI-mortality risk relationship, although apparently invariant with respect to time, is driven by noneconomic factors.

This article uses state and city level data to evaluate empirically Brinley Thomas's immigrant-as-deterrent view of the relationship between black emigration from the South and European immigration to the North. The article suggests a Todaro-like interpretation of the Great Migration, which emphasizes the importance of job availability to blacks in determining their expected wages. The combination of mass European immigration and hiring practices that favored white immigrants over blacks may have delayed the Great Migration by decades. The empirical work supports this view.

The performance of the Italian economy just before World War I was relatively poor as a result of a backward productive structure. Among other reasons, this may have been caused by the lack of domestic coal reserves, especially given the features of nineteenth-century technology. However, many economic historians resist this argument since coal could be either imported or substituted. Although both solutions were attempted in Italy, this article demonstrates that neither solved the Italian energy problem. In particular, the contribution made by electricity was much less effective than many contemporaries and historians have suggested.

After World War I rent control became a cornerstone of housing policy in many European countries, resulting in quantity constraints on the demand for housing. The theory on complete demand systems provides a framework for analyzing the effects of these policies on consumption. As a test case, a demand model is estimated to calculate virtual rent prices for interwar Belgium. The results are well in line with historical evidence, providing insight into the extent of rationing Simulations with the demand model show that the severe rent restrictions especially favored expenditures on food.

Using annual data on nationally chartered U.S. and Canadian banks from 1929 to 1989, this article empirically evaluates the impact of various regulations on bank profitability. An intercountry comparison reveals that the less restrictive regulatory environment in Canada has historically resulted in higher bank profits. Specifically, higher leverage, greater securities investment and lending opportunities, and the freedom to establish branch units all significantly contribute to higher bank profitability in Canada. Evidence presented also shows that U.S. banks would have been more profitable over the sample period in a regulatory environment similar to Canada's.

This article proposes a unified framework for studying the greenback-gold price during the U.S. suspension of convertibility from 1862 to 1879.The gold price is viewed as a floating exchange rate, with a fixed destination given by gold standard parity because of the prospect of resumption. This perspective is tested using daily data for the entire period, and the effect of news during and after the Civil War is measured. New evidence of a decline in the volatility of gold returns after the Resumption Act of 1875 provides statistical support for the importance of expectations of resumption.