John Komlos (born December 28, 1944 in Budapest, Hungary) is an American economic historian of Hungarian descent and former holder of the Chair of Economic History at the University of Munich for eighteen years. In the 1980s, Komlos was instrumental in the emergence of anthropometric history, the study of the effect of economic development on human biological outcomes such as physical stature.
Komlos received a PhD in history (1978) and a second PhD in economics (1990) from the University of Chicago, where he was influenced by the Nobel Prize winning economic historian Robert Fogel to research the economic history of human physical stature. Komlos named this new discipline "anthropometric history" in 1989. He was a fellow at the Carolina Population Center of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill from 1984 to 1986. Komlos also taught at such institutions as Harvard University, Duke University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, University of Vienna, and the Vienna University of Economics. He was professor of economics and of economic history at the University of Munich for eighteen years before his retirement. He is also the founding editor of Economics and Human Biology in 2003. Komlos was elected as a Fellow of the Cliometric Society in 2013.
What Every Economics Student Needs to Know and Doesn't Get: In the Usual Principles Text. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. 2014.
Nutrition and Economic Development in the Eighteenth-Century Habsburg Monarchy: An Anthropometric History. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 1989.
(with Bernd Süssmuth) (2010). Empirische Ökonomie: Eine Einführung in Methoden und Anwendungen. Heidelberg Dordrecht London New York: Springer Verlag. CS1 maint: Multiple names: authors list (link)
(Ed.), Stature, Living Standards, and Economic Development: Essays in Anthropometric History. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 1994.
(Ed.), Timothy Cuff (1998). Classics of Anthropometric History: A Selected Anthology. St. Katharinen, Germany: Scripta Mercaturae.
Articles
"The Trend of BMI Values of US adults by deciles, birth cohorts 1882-1986 stratified by gender and ethnicity,". NBER Working Paper no. 16252. 2011. [1]
"Anthropometric History: an Overview of a Quarter Century of Research" (PDF). Folia Anthropologica: tudományos és módszertani folyóirat. 9: 5–17. 2010. ISSN 1786-5654.
Komlos, John (2009). "How useful is anthropometric history?" (PDF). Munich Discussion Paper. Volkswirtschaftliche Fakultät, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (6).
Marieluise Baur; Komlos, J (2004). "From the Tallest to (One of) the Fattest: The Enigmatic Fate of the Size of the American Population in the Twentieth Century". Economics and Human Biology. 2 (1): 57–74. PMID 15463993. doi:10.1016/j.ehb.2003.12.006.
Michel Hau; Nicolas Bourguinat (August 2003). "An Anthropometric History of Early-Modern France, 1666-1766". European Review of Economic History (7): 159–189.
Peter Kriwy (2003). "The Biological Standard of Living in the Two Germanies". German Economic Review. 4 (4): 493–507.
"Access to Food and the Biological Standard of Living: Perspectives on the Nutritional Status of Native Americans". American Economic Review. 91 (1): 252–255. March 2003.
Ray Rees; Ngo Van Long; Ulrich Woitek (2003). "Optimal Food Allocation in a Slave Economy". Journal of Population Economics. 16: 21–36. doi:10.1007/s001480100109.
Komlos, John (1998). "Shrinking in a Growing Economy? The Mystery of Physical Stature during the Industrial Revolution". Journal of Economic History. 58 (3): 779–802. doi:10.1017/S0022050700021161.
Peter Coclanis; Komlos, J (October 1997). "On the 'Puzzling' Antebellum Cycle of the Biological Standard of Living: the Case of Georgia". Explorations in Economic History. 34 (4): 433–59. doi:10.1006/exeh.1997.0680.
"Anomalies in Economic History: Reflections on the 'Antebellum Puzzle'". Journal of Economic History. 56: 202–214. March 1996. doi:10.1017/s0022050700016089.
Peter Coclanis (1995). "Nutrition and Economic Development in Post-Reconstruction South Carolina: an Anthropometric Approach". Social Science History. 19: 91–116. doi:10.2307/1171231.
"The Secular Trend in the Biological Standard of Living in the United Kingdom, 1730-1860". Economic History Review. 46: 115–44. February 1993. doi:10.2307/2597683.
Joo Han Kim (1990). "Estimating Trends in Historical Heights". Historical Methods. 23 (3): 116–120. doi:10.1080/01615440.1990.10594202.
"The Height and Weight of West Point Cadets: Dietary Change in Antebellum America". Journal of Economic History. 47: 897–927. 1987. doi:10.1017/s002205070004986x. The fifth most frequently cited article in the journal's history (as of 2011).
"Stature and Nutrition in the Habsburg Monarchy: The Standard of Living and Economic Development". American Historical Review. 90: 1149–1161. 1985. doi:10.2307/1859662.
