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Does Democracy Make Taller Men? Cross-Country European Evidence
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Does Democracy Make Taller Men? Cross-Country European Evidence

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  • Alberto Batinti
  • Joan Costa-i-Font

Abstract

We study whether a democracy improves a measure of individual wellbeing; human heights. Drawing on individual-level datasets, we test the hypothesis using a battery of eight different measures of democracy and derived averages, and include models accounting for several confounders, regional and cohort fixed effects. We document that democracy - or its quality during early childhood - shows a strong and positive conditional correlation with male, but not female, adult stature. Our preferred estimates suggest that being born in a democracy increases average male stature from a minimum of 1.33 to a maximum of 2.4 cm. Together with the positive association with male stature and the increase in gender dimorphism, we also show an additional contribution when democracy increases furtherly during adolescent years, and when we adopt measures of existing democratic capital before birth and at the end of height plasticity in early adulthood. We also find that democracy is associated with a reduction in inequality of heights distribution. We finally find evidence of period-heterogeneity, namely, early democratizations are associated with taller people more than later ones. Results are robust to the inclusion of countries exposed to communism.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Batinti & Joan Costa-i-Font, 2021. "Does Democracy Make Taller Men? Cross-Country European Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9482, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_9482
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    2. Wroński, Marcin, 2023. "The full distribution of adult height in Poland: Cohorts born between 1920 and 1996. The biological cost of the economic transition," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 50(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    democracy; wellbeing; human heights; waves of democratisation; communism; Europe; survey data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I18 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
    • P20 - Political Economy and Comparative Economic Systems - - Socialist and Transition Economies - - - General

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