Short Criminals: Stature and Crime in Early America

Howard Bodenhorn, Carolyn Moehling and Gregory Price

No 15945, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper considers the extent to which crime in early America was conditioned on height. With data on inmates incarcerated in Pennsylvania state penitentiaries between 1826 and 1876, we estimate the parameters of Wiebull proportional hazard specifications of the individual crime hazard. Our results reveal that, consistent with a theory in which height can be a source of labor market disadvantage, criminals in early America were shorter than the average American, and individual crime hazards decreased in height.

JEL-codes: J24 K14 N31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-04
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-lab and nep-law
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Published as Howard Bodenhorn & Carolyn Moehling & Gregory N. Price, 2012. "Short Criminals: Stature and Crime in Early America," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(2), pages 393 - 419.

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