Heights and economic history: the Swedish case

Measurements of Swedish soldiers were recorded in muster rolls as early as the 1760s. Results of a sample of these measurements over the period up to 1880 are used as an index of living standards in comparison with perceptions formed from other sources. The most striking contrast concerns the period of the mid-nineteenth century. Among economic historians, those who hold the optimistic view that living standards continuously improved during the mid-1800s predominated, but our results combined with other evidence point, on the contrary, to a mild subsistence crisis in western Sweden at that period.