Examines the height of Habsburg Soldiers in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and argues that the society was facing a Malthusian crisis, which induced the Monarch to enact many institutional changes in order to save the society from disaster. While living standards declined, the...

We examine spatial convergence in biological well-being in the Habsburg Monarchy circa 1890-1910 on the basis of evidence on the physical stature of 21-year-old recruits disaggregated into 15 districts. We find that the shorter was the population in 1890 the faster its height grew thereafter....