IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ahe/dtaehe/2404.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Did the US annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898 increase the biological standard of living of its population? A first anthropometric approach

Author

Listed:
  • Javier Moreno Lázaro

    (Universidad de Valladolid, Valladolid, Spain)

Abstract

This paper hypothesises that the annexation of Puerto Rico by the United States in 1898 led to a decline in material well-being, as measured by individual height, that lasted for the first three decades of the twentieth century. To demonstrate this, a significant sample has been created made up of the height of males born in Puerto Rico between 1877 and 1929 who were enlisted in the army between 1940 and 1947. In order to make the relevant comparisons a second sample with the heights of California residents has also been created. The results of the calculations show a sharp decline in the height of Puerto Ricans, both in relative and absolute terms. This deterioration was due to the shortcomings of the public policies implemented by the US government, which failed to improve the working, food, health and residential conditions of Puerto Ricans. In addition, they suffered the social costs of the price of sugar on the world market as well as those inherent in the late adoption of industrial capitalism. These results call into question the indolence of Spanish colonialism and highlight the difficulties of emerging US colonialism in generating welfare in the territories it occupied.

Suggested Citation

  • Javier Moreno Lázaro, 2024. "Did the US annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898 increase the biological standard of living of its population? A first anthropometric approach," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 2404, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    • Handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2404
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://media.timtul.com/media/web_aehe/DT-AEHE-2404_20240515080556.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Raymond E. Crist, 1948. "Sugar Cane and Coffee in Puerto Rico, III," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(4), pages 469-474, July.
    2. Richard H. Steckel & Roderick Floud, 1997. "Introduction to "Health and Welfare during Industrialization"," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Welfare during Industrialization, pages 1-16, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Richard H. Steckel & Roderick Floud, 1997. "Health and Welfare during Industrialization," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stec97-1.
    4. Marein, Brian, 2020. "Economic development in Puerto Rico after US annexation: Anthropometric evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 38(C).
    5. Raymond E. Crist, 1948. "Sugar Cane and Coffee in Puerto Rico, II," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 321-337, April.
    6. Raymond E. Crist, 1948. "Sugar Cane and Coffee in Puerto Rico, I," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(2), pages 173-184, January.
    7. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    8. Baten, Joerg & Pelger, Ines & Twrdek, Linda, 2009. "The anthropometric history of Argentina, Brazil and Peru during the 19th and early 20th century," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 319-333, December.
    9. Richard H. Steckel, 1995. "Stature and the Standard of Living," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 33(4), pages 1903-1940, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria-Dolores, Ramon & Martínez Carrion, José Miguel, 2012. "The comovement between height and some economic development indicators in Spain," UMUFAE Economics Working Papers 26464, DIGITUM. Universidad de Murcia.
    2. Schultz, T. Paul, 2010. "Population and Health Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4785-4881, Elsevier.
    3. Hatton, Timothy J. & Martin, Richard M., 2010. "Fertility decline and the heights of children in Britain, 1886-1938," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 47(4), pages 505-519, October.
    4. Julianne Treme & Lee A. Craig, 2013. "Urbanization, Health And Human Stature," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 65, pages 130-141, May.
    5. Antonio M. Linares-Luján & Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno, 2021. "Rural Height Penalty or Socioeconomic Penalization? The Nutritional Inequality in Backward Spain," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-25, April.
    6. Bernard Harris, 2021. "Anthropometric history and the measurement of wellbeing," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 19(1), pages 91-123.
    7. Ramon Ramon-Muñoz & Josep-Maria Ramon-Muñoz, 2015. "Height and Industrialisation in a City in Catalonia during the Nineteenth Century," UB School of Economics Working Papers 2015/334, University of Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Crafts, Nicholas, 1999. "Quantitative economic history," Economic History Working Papers 22390, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    9. Konstantin Buechel, Stephan Kyburz, 2016. "Fast Track to Growth? The Impact of Railway Access on Regional Economic Development in 19th Century Switzerland," Diskussionsschriften credresearchpaper12, Universitaet Bern, Departement Volkswirtschaft - CRED.
    10. Akachi, Yoko & Canning, David, 2015. "Inferring the economic standard of living and health from cohort height: Evidence from modern populations in developing countries," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 19(C), pages 114-128.
    11. Komlos, John, 2012. "A Three-Decade “Kuhnian” History of the Antebellum Puzzle: Explaining the shrinking of the US population at the onset of modern economic growth," Discussion Papers in Economics 12758, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    12. Meisel-Roca, Adolfo & Ramírez-Giraldo, María Teresa & Santos-Cárdenas, Daniela, 2019. "Long run relationship between biological well being, and economic development in Colombia," Working papers 24, Red Investigadores de Economía.
    13. Janet Currie & Tom Vogl, 2013. "Early-Life Health and Adult Circumstance in Developing Countries," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 5(1), pages 1-36, May.
    14. Ramón María-Dolores & José Miguel Martínez Carrión, 2009. "The relationship between height and economic development in Spain. A historical perspective," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 0912, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    15. Batinti, Alberto & Costa-Font, Joan, 2022. "Does democracy make taller men? Cross-country European evidence," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 45(C).
    16. Penttinen, Antti & Moltchanova, Elena & Nummela, Ilkka, 2013. "Bayesian modeling of the evolution of male height in 18th century Finland from incomplete data," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(4), pages 405-415.
    17. Grajales-Porras, Agustín & López-Alonso, Moramay, 2011. "Physical stature of men in eighteenth century Mexico: Evidence from Puebla," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 265-271, July.
    18. Scott A. Carson, 2021. "The Changing Antebellum Period through Early 20th Century Net Nutrition between Male and Females: A Difference-In-Decompositions within and across Group Comparison," CESifo Working Paper Series 9402, CESifo.
    19. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    20. José Cañabate-Cabezuelos & José M. Martínez-Carrión, 2016. "Poverty and rural height penalty in inland Spain during the nutrition transition," Documentos de Trabajo de la Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria 1604, Sociedad de Estudios de Historia Agraria.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Anthropometry; Puerto Rico; Spain; United States; colonialism; standard of living;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F54 - International Economics - - International Relations, National Security, and International Political Economy - - - Colonialism; Imperialism; Postcolonialism
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • N36 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Latin America; Caribbean

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ahe:dtaehe:2404. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Andreu Seguí Beltrán (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeheeea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.