More Bad News for the Height-Challenged

They’re more likely to be criminals! Or at least they were in 19th-century Pennsylvania, according to a new working?paper by Howard Bodenhorn, Carolyn Moehling, and Gregory N. Price. The authors don’t identify a reason for the height differential, but do point out that “[i]f in early America, short individuals faced labor market disadvantage because of either lower productivity due to lesser physical capacity for heavy work, lesser productivity due to lower cognitive ability, or because they faced discrimination, the relative opportunity costs of crime would be lower which would increase the likelihood of transitioning into criminal activity.”[%comments]