BACKGROUND A group of researchers has argued that sexual stature dimorphism (SSD) can serve as an indicator of living standards. This argument is based on evidence that boys' physical growth is more sensitive to environmental conditions than girls' physical growth. Because Korea's economic growth in the second half of the 20th century was unprecedentedly rapid, according to their logic, it is l...

This paper applies a two good, multi-region Ramsey-Solow model to determine the impact of future demographic change on international living standards and the optimal rate of national saving. Notable features of the model include: an outward looking model of utility, a premium in the interest rate for capital importing regions, an exchange rate expressed as the relative price of traded and non-t...

The measurement of living standards is widely recognized to be a multivariate challenge. In this paper, problems with the use of typical univariate indicators are outlined, and a novel approach is suggested which relies on Kohonen maps. The stability and accuracy of the map are evaluated via a bootstrap methodology. This paper presents an application of the technique of Kohonen maps in the cont...

Despite the widespread use of income as a measure of household welfare, there is much to recommend the use of consumption. Indeed, standard economic arguments suggest that consumption expenditure will better reflect expected lifetime resources and many economists have been unequivocal in advocating its use. Slesnick (1993), for example, suggests that ‘From a theoretical perspective it is more a...