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Gregori Galofré-Vilà, José-Miguel Martínez-Carrión,
and Javier Puche
Height and Climate in Mediterranean Spain,
1850–1949 For the last few decades, height has become increas-
ingly popular as a proxy for changes in human well-being. Height
measures the cumulative effect of the nutrients available throughout
the growth period after allowing for physical maintenance, work,
and the impact of man-made and natural environments. Genes are
important at the individual level, but environmental conditions from
conception to maturity determine which or how much genetic
potential is realized during development. Stature is a particularly use-
ful indicator in historical research when data about more conven-
tional or modern indicators are lacking.
Anthropometric historians draw attention to the relationship
between height and a wide range of social, economic, and environ-
mental factors, such as urban development, diseases, and food prices.
Yet, although historians emphasize some of the causes for changes in
stature over the long term, they have done little research into cli-
mate. This neglect is surprising given the suggestions in the literature
concerning the importance of climatic changes. For instance, Floud
et al. write, “Nutritional status . . . varies with individual circum-
stances. Whether the diet of a particular individual is nutritionally
adequate depends, in part, on his or her level of physical activity,
Gregori Galofré-Vilà is Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oxford, and Postdoctoral
Researcher, University of Bocconi. He is the author of “Growth and Maturity: A Quantitative
Systematic Review and Network Analysis in Anthropometric History,”Economics & Human
Biology, XXVIII (2018), 107–118.
José-Miguel Martínez-Carrión is Professor of Economic History, Universidad de Murcia.
He is the author of “Stature, Welfare and Economic Growth in Nineteenth-century Spain,”
in Roderick Floud et al. (eds.), Health, Mortality and the Standard of Living in Europe and North
American since 1700 (Cheltenham, 2014), 443–460.
Javier Puche is Lecturer of Economic History, Universidad de Zaragoza. He is co-author of,
with María Isabel Ayuda, “Determinants of Height and Biological Inequality in Mediterranean
Spain, 1859–1967,”Economics & Human Biology, XXV (2014), 101–109.
The authors thank Bernard Harris, Aravinda Guntupalli, Eric Schneider, Salvador Calatayud
Giner, Samuel Garrido, and a reviewer for valuable comments. They acknowledge financial
support from HAR2016-76814-C2-2-P (MICINN-FEDER-EU) and ECO2015-65582
(MEC-MICINN).
© 2018 by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and The Journal of Interdisciplinary
History, Inc., https://doi.org/10.1162/jinh_a_01268
Journal of Interdisciplinary History, XLIX:2 (Autumn, 2018), 247–277.
the climate of the region in which he or she lives, and the extent of
his or her exposure to various diseases.”
1
A small number of empirical studies have examined the effect
of climate on height in the long term. Komlos found that an in-
crease in temperature and a decline in summer and autumn rainfall
during the late eighteenth century in France led to height in-
creases. Baten found that warm winters during the eighteenth
century led to height increases in Bavaria (Germany), whereas cold
years had the opposite effect. However, until recently, long-term
empirical evidence has been unavailable due to the scarcity of
climatic data. Indeed, the two aforementioned studies had only
crude meteorological data at their disposal. Baten compensated
by using data about winter temperatures in the Swiss Alps between
1725 and 1795, and Komlos by using winter temperatures from
Paris between 1675 and 1715, together with English and Swiss
temperature data for the period from 1670 to 1770.
2
The lack of climatic data becomes more pronounced the fur-
ther back in time we go. For instance, Steckel and Rose in the
Backbone of History attempted to link cross-sectional variations in
health gleaned from skeletal remains with such site characteristics
as settlement size, topography, and climate in North and Central
America throughout the last 7,000 years. They found, however,
that despite prima facie grounds for viewing climate as an influenc-
ing factor on health, their research did not support the idea:
“Somewhat to our surprise, climatic distinctions were completely
irrelevant for the health index . . . . This result does not mean that
climate was everywhere irrelevant for health, but only that within
the sample under study, our measure of health (the health index)
was not affected by [the] climatic distinctions we were able to
make (tropical, sub-tropical and temperate) for the pre-Columbian
sites. We therefore eliminated climate from further study, but plan
to revisit this topic in later research.”However, recent research by
1 Roderick Floud et al., The Changing Body: Health, Nutrition, and Human Development in the
Western World since 1700 (New York, 2011), 41.
2 John Komlos, “An Anthropometric History of Early-Modern France,”European Review of
Economic History, VII (2003), 159–189; Joerg Baten, “Climate, Grain Production and Nutri-
tional Status in Southern Germany during the XVIIIth Century,”Journal of European Economic
History, XXX (2001), 9–47. For the scarcity of suitable historical meteorological data, see
Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones, and Benjamin Olken, “What Do We Learn from the Weather?
The New Climate Economy Literature,”Journal of Economic Literature, LII (2014), 740–798.
248 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
Galofré-Vilà, Hinde, and Guntupalli in England, or Koepke and
Baten in Europe, also failed to identify a clear relationship between
climate and stature throughout the last 2,000 years.
3
The works outlined above are limited in their ability to ex-
plore the relationship between height and climate in an unadjusted
and descriptive way, given their crude measures of climate. With
the benefit of more complex methods and robust climatic data,
this article is able to explore the effect of weather and climate in
great detail, controlling for a list of covariates in height statistics.
We define weather as the monthly or seasonal temperature and rain-
fall in a particular locality and climate as the general character of the
temperature and rainfall that accumulated during longer periods of
time (several years or decades). The area under analysis is the region
of València in Mediterranean Spain between 1850 and 1949.
VALÈNCIA AS A CASE STUDY
Agriculture Throughout the last century, Spain lagged be-
hind the other European economies; the country’s slow growth
was accompanied by a delay in structural change. In 1887, about
72.3 percent of the male population was still employed in agricul-
ture, despite the existence of regional differences. This figure was
lower in the Mediterranean area (62.8 percent) and higher in the
interior (76.2 percent) and north (77.8 percent). These ratios fell
substantially during the course of four decades, after which agri-
culture accounted for half of the male labor force in 1930, being
below the mean in the Mediterranean area (38.8 percent) and
3 Richard Steckel and Jerome C. Rose, The Backbone of History: Health and Nutrition in the
Western Hemisphere (New York, 2002), 567. Steckel and Rose’s health index summarizes com-
munity health by converting skeletal data into specific rates of morbidity, expressed in the
frequency and severity of skeletal lesions. This index is graded on a scale of 0 (the most severe)
to 100 (no lesions or deficiencies). Stature was known for only 3,049 individuals out of 12,520.
Years later, Steckel also acknowledged that he and Rose “estimated a sequence of regressions
that examined the statistical connection between health and various ecological categories like
climate, size of settlement, diet, terrain, and vegetation. Climate—as measured in categories of
tropical, subtropical, and temperate—bore no relevance to the health index. This result was
unanticipated and bears further study with more refined measures.”See Richard Steckel,
“Biological Measures of the Standard of Living,”Journal of Economic Perspectives, XXII (2008),
148. Galofré-Vilà, Andrew Hinde, and Aravinda Meera Guntupalli, “Heights across the Last
2000 Years in England,”Research in Economic History, XXXIII (2018), 67–98; Nikola Koepke
and Joerg Baten, “The Biological Standard of Living in Europeduring the Last Two Millennia,”
European Review of Economic History, IX (2005), 61–95.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |249
above it in the interior and Andalusian regions (53.2 percent and
58.8 percent, respectively).
4
Table 1 shows the distribution of cultivated land in the region
of València. Alacant had abundant vineyards; Castelló specialized
in cereals (rice being the most salient crop), pulses, and fruit trees;
and València primarily cultivated fruit trees and vines, along with
tubers and roots. Cereals and pulses were dominant in all of the prov-
inces, accounting for more than 40 percent of the total land in 1922
until c. 1930 when oranges and rice became the main crops. In
València, the major landowners made the shift to orange trees, focus-
ing on marginal rain-fed areas. Yet in regions of Castelló, the smaller
proprietors were responsible for the expansion into oranges; they
planted trees in gardens and orchards, investing in irrigation and cre-
ating extensive plantations as long-term investments in the citrus
market. Hence, given its climatic conditions and geography, Valencian
agriculture was by no means a monoculture. Its most outstanding
feature was the co-existence of diverse productive specializations.
5
Certain crops and developments were the result of external
shocks. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the ravages
of the phylloxera (a pest in grapevines) boosted the French demand
for wine, resulting in a rise in the number of vineyards around the
Mediterranean. This boom was particularly striking in rain-fed areas
of València, which, by 1882, accounted for 60 percent of Spain’swine
exports. Hence, regional specialization in agriculture explains the
Valencian ability to take advantage of the favorable climatic and eco-
nomic conditions for crops of high value, which in turn, led to
industrial development, agricultural or otherwise. As a case in point,
Castelló de la Plana and Oriola developed a hemp industry, and
Alcoi or Elx became an important market for cloth and footwear.
6
4 Data from the population working in agriculture are from James Simpson, Spanish Agri-
culture: The Long Siesta, 1765–1965 (New York, 1995), 54. For the influence of agriculture on
GDP, see Prados de la Escosura, El Progreso Económico de España (1850–2000) (Madrid, 2003).
5 Samuel Garrido, “El conreu del taronger a la Plana de Castelló: Agricultura comercial,
Propietat pagesa i Treballas salariat (1850–1930),”Estudis d’Història Agrària, XIII (1999),
201–227; Salvador Calatayud, “Desarrollo agrario e Industrialización: Crecimiento y Crisis
en la economía Valenciana del siglo XX,”Historia Contemporánea, XLII (2011), 105–147; idem
and Jesús Millán, “Las vías simultáneas del capitalismo agrario valenciano,”in Ramón Garrabou
(ed.), Sombras de progreso: Las huellas de la historia agraria (Barcelona, 2010), 199–229.
6Thefirst European appearance of the phylloxera plague was in 1868, affecting the French re-
gions of Burdeos and Gard; it rapidly spread into southern France during the next five years, lasting
until 1885. See Juan Piqueras Haba, “La filoxera en España y su difusión espacial: 1878–1926,”
Cuadernos de Geografía, LXXVII (2005), 106–107.
250 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
Table 1 Distribution of the Cultivated Land in the Provinces of Alacant, Castelló, and València (in Hectares)
ALACANT CASTELLÓ VALÈNCIA
1860 1886–
1890 1903–
1912 1922 1860 1886–
1890 1903–
1912 1922 1860 1886–
1890 1903–
1912 1922
NONIRRIGATED AREAS
Cereals and pulses 108,123 14,514 56,568 114,909 52,885 79,695 108,995 107,014 84,324 92,342 68,097 60,678
Vineyards 28,535 51,620 60,380 56,982 25,438 46,413 40,177 17,739 60,292 106,459 96,294 83,020
Olive trees 14,226 19,785 8,432 17,900 11,697 22,815 28,838 30,526 36,353 31,134 29,726 42,384
Fruit trees 20,473 6,656 20,900 12,494 26,050 32,188 51,519 52,448 60,762 60,000 82,972 90,600
Tubers - - - - - 9,140 8,783 11,165 - - - -
IRRIGATED AREAS
Cereals and pulses 25,449 25,801 22,790 28,184 5,796 14,267 12,214 14,676 76,482 65,559 79,944 85,833
Vineyards 3,868 34,715 33,500 3,230 2,005 913 2,182 - 4,491 7,300 5,000 -
Olive tress 4,022 - 8,000 4,670 1,357 185 501 348 1,315 669 850 -
Vegetables 904 554 2,351 1,933 1,140 1,000 998 1,275 2,494 3,500 4,168 11,370
Fruit trees 892 892 1,610 4,254 704 2,730 14,435 16,892 545 7,150 16,024 20,336
Industrial plants 2,500 1,000 2,594 3,900 2,800 800 558 987 1,000 600 259 50
Tubers, roots and bulbs 600 1,550 3,500 3,450 800 1,000 2,853 4,001 1,500 5,282 10,780 15,161
Fodder 600 1,500 2,705 5,650 700 1,011 1,314 2,322 3,500 11,500 14,392 14,455
SOURCE Ramón Garrabou, Un fals dilemma: modernitat o endarreriment de l’agricultura Valenciana (1850–1900) ( València, 1985), 168–178 (Appendix 2).
Technological Development in Agriculture In Tortella’sview,
even though “Spain’s physical environment is ill suited to an im-
provement in agricultural techniques, technological change in
agriculture was more developed in Valencia than in other areas
due to irrigation.”According to Simpson, “Farmers in areas of tra-
ditional irrigation, such as Valencia, were adept at changing the
crop mix and developing new seed varieties.”Garrabou agrees that
“during the 18th century, the Valencian farmers stand out for
[their] extraordinary ability to use a scarce resource such as water.”
However, not all the municipalities in València used irrigation
systems; the Mediterranean climate gave rise to low and irregular
yields in rain-fed areas but high productivity in irrigated areas.
Garrabou calculated that irrigated yields such as wheat and barley,
which represented around 30 percent of the crops grown in
València and more than 50 percent of those grown in Alacant
and Castelló, at least doubled those of dry crops and were fre-
quently three, four, and even five times as great. They also doubled
or tripled the average yields of Spain as a whole. He and Simpson
discovered that Valencian yields in agriculture were similar to those
in northern European countries. Unsurprisingly, given the combi-
nation of warm temperatures and irrigation, the profits obtained from
wheat or barley grown on irrigated land were much higher than
those on rain-fed land—between three and four times in the case
of wheat and six and seven times for barley. This regional differen-
tiation allows us to compare the impact of climate on the heights of
people born in high and low technological agricultural areas.
7
All these specializations resulted in outstanding processes of
technical change. Notwithstanding the introduction of mineral
and chemical fertilizers, the most important technical innovation, de-
spite a long-standing historical tradition, was the massive recourse to
irrigation. At the end of the nineteenth century, water from irriga-
tion reached 25 percent of the cultivated fields, a proportion greater
than in any other region in Spain. Favorable temperatures and
7 Gabriel Tortella, “Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery in South-Western
Europe in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,”Economic History Review, XLVII (1994), 8;
Garrabou, Un fals dilemma,31–32; Simpson, “La producción y la productividad agraria Españolas,
1890–1936,”Revista de Historia Economica—Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History,
XII (1994), 43–84.
252 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
insulation constituted the comparative advantage of València
relative to other regions in Spain.
8
Industrialization From the early nineteenth century, València fol-
lowed a particular economic model—intensive, export-oriented agri-
culture driven by small businesses highly dependent on supporting
development. Many industries supplied the necessary technology—
such as machinery, packaging, and fertilizers—to rural areas. Others
covered the demand of new and crowded urban centers for con-
sumer goods. Hence, despite not being an industrial hub, by the
1910s, València was one of the most industrialized regions of Spain,
surpassed only by Catalonia, Andalusia, and the Basque Country.
9
Public Health and Sanitation As illustrated in Figure 1, dramatic
improvements in health conditions fostered a transition from high
birth and death rates to lower ones, interrupted only by the influenza
pandemic of 1918 and the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). In The
Conquest of Health, Pérez Moreda et al. account for the Spanish
demographic transition, delayed as it was in the European context,
by improvements in sanitation and public hygiene. Indeed, the re-
duction in the number of deaths (particularly infant deaths) was
due to a lower incidence of infectious diseases caused by water and
airborne transmission, better personal hygiene (including washing
hands and boiling drinking water), and municipal legislative
reforms. Before these reforms occurred, some of the peaks in mor-
tality during the nineteenth and early twentieth century were
closely related to climatic conditions—for example, the major
cholera outbreaks linked to heat waves in the summer and intense
flooding in the autumn.
10
8 Calatayud, “Desarrollo agrario e Industrialización: Crecimiento y Crisis en la economía
Valenciana del siglo XX,”Historia Contemporánea, XLII (2011), 105–147; Primitivo Artigas,
Reseña geográfica y estadística de España (Madrid, 1888), 534–535. For chemical fertilizers, see
Enric Mateu, “La elección de las técnicas de abonado en el cultivo del arroz en Valencia
(1840–1930),”in Garrabou and José M. Naredo (eds.), La fertilización en los sistemas agrarios:
Una perspectiva histórica (València, 1996), 255–271.
9 Tortella, “Patterns of Economic Retardation and Recovery,”8; Simpson, Long Siesta, 277;
Garrabou, Un fals dilemma, 82; Calatayud, “Desarrollo agrarioe Industrialización,”105–147. For the
different levels of industrial intensity,see Parejo Barranco, “Andalucía en la industrialización de las
regiones españolas (finales del siglo XVIII-finales del siglo XX),”in González de Molina Navarro
and idem (eds.), La Historia de Andalucía a Debate. III. Industrialización y Desindustrialización de
Andalucía (Barcelona, 2004).
10 Vicente Pérez Moreda, David Sven Reher, and Alberto Sanz Gimeno, La Conquista de la
Salud: Mortalidad y Modernización en la España contemporánea (Madrid, 2015). Regarding public
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |253
After the Spanish Civil War, morbidity and mortality resumed
its downward trend, with a notable improvement in mortality
attributable in large part to the introduction of the antibiotics and
the sulfa drugs in the mid-1930s, followed by penicillin in the
mid-1940s. Vaccination virtually eliminated the previously common
infectious diseases diphtheria, tetanus, and measles. Hence, sanitation
and public-health reforms eventually overcame the climatic penalty
of the old regime.
11
Diseases In A’Hearn’s words, “Beyond the general level and
trend of economic development, there are specific features of the
Mediterranean world that ought to have affected height, such as
Fig.1 Infant and Overall Mortality in València, 1860–1960
NOTES Since infants and children are generally the most vulnerable to infectious environ-
ments, they benefited most from improvements in public health. Both parts of the figure dis-
play the effects of the cholera epidemic of 1865; the cholera epidemic of 1885 (which is
believed to have killed 120,254 people, 33,609 of them from València); the Spanish Influenza
(1918); the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), and the postwar period.
SOURCE Data are from Vicente Gozálvez Pérez, “Natalidad y mortalidad,”Cuadernos de
Geografía, LXXIII/IV (2003), 277–302.
efforts in municipal reforms, in Alcoi, the per capita budget for sanitation over total spending
increased from 0.39 pesetas (1836–1840) to 2.08 (1846–1850), 2.75 (1891–1895), 6.97 (1906–
1910), and 11.33 (1911–1914). Data are from José Joaquín García Gómez, “Living Standards of
Workers in Alcoy: Wages, Nutrition and Health Reform (1836–1913),”Economic History
Research, XI (2015), 164–173.
11 For further details, see Vicente Gozálvez Pérez, “Natalidad y mortalidad,”Cuadernos de
Geografía, LXXIII/IV (2003), 277–302.
254 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
climate-related protein scarcity and other dietary deficiencies . . . and
conditions conducive to endemic diseases such as malaria.”Malaria,
which is highly sensitive to the climatic environment, was endemic
to in some areas of nineteenth-century València. Although irrigated
areas helped crops to grow, they also created conditions conducive to
malaria. Malaria is a greater threat of morbidity than mortality; the
physical weakness caused by malarial fever facilitates the develop-
ment of complications from other diseases. Until the mid-twentieth
century, malaria and digestive diseases like dysentery, enteritis, and
diarrhoea were particularly prevalent, caused by the combination
of poor diet, hot weather, and scarcity of fresh food. Digestive dis-
eases, which accounted for more than half of children’sdeaths,
skyrocketed during the summer months. As already seen, potable
water and sewerage were not common until well into the twentieth
century.
12
Urbanization Despite Spain being a poor country, where in-
dustrialization did not begin until the second half of the twentieth
century, València’s urban centers were important for their role in
the development of the region’s industrial processes. The percentage
of the urban population living in towns (those with more than 5,000
inhabitants) was greater in València than in Spain as a whole—in
1860, 32 percent (Spain 22.6 percent), in 1900, 37.2 percent (Spain
29.3 percent), in 1930, 46.4 percent (Spain, 37.1percent), and in
1960, 60.2 percent (Spain, 50.7 percent). Out of all seventeen
Spanish regions, València was only behind the regions of Madrid
(with 60.6 percent in 1860 and 88.0 percent in 1960) and Catalonia
(27.8 percent in 1860 and 69.2 percent in 1960). The rapid accel-
eration of València’s initial urbanization and industrialization
carried an urban penalty, lowering the well-being of the working
classes living in such cities as Alcoi and Elx. In the twentieth cen-
tury, however, the situation reversed: When urban centers began
to confront mortality with public-health movements, sanitary
12 Brian A’Hearn, “The Anthropometric History of the Mediterranean World,”in Komlos
and Kelly (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Economics and Human Biology (New York, 2016), 3.
For malaria in València, see Bueno Marí and Jiménez Peydró, “Crónicas de Arroz, Mosquitos
y Paludismo en España: El caso de la provincia de Valencia (s. XVIII–XX),”Revista Española
de Historia, LXX (2010), 687–708; Martínez-Carrión, “Stature, Welfare and Economic
Growth in Nineteenth Century Spain: The Case of Murcia,”in Komlos (ed.) Stature, Living
Standards and Economic Development: Essays in Anthropometric History (Chicago, 1994), 76–89; for
digestive diseases, Garrabou, Un fals dilema; Pérez Moreda, Reher, and Sanz Gimeno, La
Conquista de la Salud.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |255
reforms, and new investments in infrastructure during the 1920s
and 1930s, rural life was no longer a safer bet with respect to
longevity.
13
External Events Notable among the external events was the
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), which led to an inadequate food
supply and an uncompetitive and autarchic economy. Beyond the
negative effects of the War, the postwar period (autarky under
Francisco Franco) had even worse food shortages and the resort
to ration cards. The richer and more industrial regions—such as
Catalonia, the Basque country, and València—remained faithful
to the Republic. However, Franco’s uprising took control of most
of the agricultural areas, where only around 30 percent of the total
agrarian product was in the hands of the Republicans.
Life worsened for most people during the Civil War, though
not as much in València as in other Republican zones (Catalonia
for one) because of the region’s extensive land ownership, its
greater agricultural production (particularly in irrigated areas),
and its agricultural cooperatives. Although the effects of the war
were independent of any climatic event, people were arguably
more exposed to the rigors of environmental conditions in times
of war. For instance, Sanz Gimeno and Ramiro Fariñas found that
in Spain during and after the Civil War, deaths from infectious dis-
eases and water- and food-borne diseases rapidly increased. More-
over, the evidence shows that during the postwar period, the
combined effects of deprivation by autarchy in rural areas and a
persistent drought in the mid-1940s caused food shortages and
delays in adolescent growth spurt.
14
13 Urbanization data are from Tafunell, “Urbanización y vivienda,”in Albert Carreras
and Xavier Tafunell (eds.), Estadísticas históricas de España siglos XIX–XX (Madrid, 2005),
484–486 (Table 6.3). For the urban penalty in València, see Martínez Carrión et al., “La brecha
rural-urbana de la estatura y el nivel de vida al comienzo de la industrialización española,”Historia
Social, LXXX (2014), 35–57; Martínez Carrión and Juan José Pérez Castejón, “Height and
Standards of Living during the Industrialisation of Spain: The Case of Elche,”European
Review of Economic History, II (1998), 201–230.
14 Martínez-Carrión, Puche, and Josep-Maria Ramon-Muñoz, “Nutrición y desigualdad
social en la España de Franco: Evidencia antropométrica,”in Antoni Segura, Andreu Mayayo,
and Teresa Abelló (eds.), La dictadura franquista: La institucionalizació d’un règim (Barcelona,
2012), 271–284; Puche, “Guerra Civil, autarquía franquista y bienestar biológico en el mundo
rural valenciano,”Historia Agraria, LII (2010), 129–162; José Cañabate-Cabezuelos and
Martínez-Carrion “Poverty and Rural Height in Inland Spain during the Nutrition Transition,”
Historia Agraria, LXX (2017), 109–142.
256 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
Moreover, World War I (in which Spain was a neutral coun-
try) expanded industry in Catalonia but also curtailed Valencian
agricultural exports, at least until the early 1920s when Europe re-
covered. Yet, the loss of several important markets, such as the
German, the Austro-Hungarian, and the Belgian, and a reduction
in commercial traffic with France, were a great handicap for the
commercialization of Valencian citrus and fruits.
15
Climate The climate of Spain—humid in the north and dry
around the Mediterranean—defines the diversity of the regions.
The region of València has the Mediterranean climate—warm,
drysummers;wet,mildwinters;andrainduringtheautumn
months. The average yearly temperature is 14.72°C and rainfall
414.61mm, the result of a number of geographical and climatic
factors. The weather largely depends on distance above sea level.
Areas become colder and wetter with elevation, whereas those at
sea level to 900 meters above, such as ports, are warmer and drier.
Those municipalities lying in the highlands have greater exposure
to sunlight, receiving an abundant source of vitamin D, and their
crops mature earlier than those in other level areas.
16
Latitude also matters; the southern areas in the province of
Alacant tend to be warmer and drier. Furthermore, as distance
from the sea increases, temperatures drop, and rainfall increases.
The sea acts like a thermostat, regulating and softening tempera-
tures. Inland areas have colder, longer winters and mild summers.
Given the relative higher humidity in coastal location, the thermal
conditions there in the summer months are warmer than else-
where in the region. Climatic conditions also change by season. In
January, the temperature ranges from 10 to 11°C in coastal areas and
3 to 4°C in the highlands. In June, temperatures differ by 3°C in the
coastal and mountain areas. Environmental factors such as the rough-
ness of the terrain and the wind direction help to determine rainfall
15 Alberto Sanz Gimeno and Diego Ramiro Fariñas, “La caída de la mortalidad en la in-
fancia en la España interior, 1860–1960: Un análisis de las causas de muerte,”Cuadernos de
Historia Contemporánea, XXIV (2002), 151–188. For the effects of the Civil War on height,
see Martínez-Carrión and Pérez Castejón, “Height and Standards of Living,”201–230.
16 For the details of environmental and climatic conditions in València, see Piqueras, Espacio
Valenciano: Una síntesis geográfica (València, 1999). A comarca is the Valencian administrative sub-
division, which is between the level of a municipality and a province. Our description of the
climatic data derives from Carlo Casty et al., “A European Pattern Climatology 1766–2000,”
Climate Dynamics, XXIX (2007), 791–805, available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/
pubs/casty2007/casty2007.html. See next section.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |257
patterns. València shares the Mediterranean climate, but the region
shows wide variability in its weather and environment.
17
The average rainfall is mostly between 400 and 500 mm per
year, although it can range from 250 mm in Elx and Oriola to
600–800 mm per year in the highlands of Gandia and Pego. The
rainfall is most copious in September and October; September is
a crucial month for agricultural production, when important crops
such as rice are harvested. Rainy autumns are important for water-
ing crops and sustaining life. Aside from the climatic conditions of a
given year, the seasonal distribution of temperatures and rainfall
have the utmost importance for agricultural production, as well
as the spreading of diseases such as malaria, diarrhea, and enteritis.
The hot and dry summer months severely limit crop growth except
in areas with good irrigation.
THE UNIQUENESS OF VALÈNCIA What was the role of climate in this
unique context of development? The Valencian economy began
to evolve during the middle of the nineteenth century in a way
that differed from that of the rest of Spain. On the one hand, an
increasingly widespread access to land generated an intensive ex-
port agriculture and an agricultural surplus that permitted the im-
provement of living standards for València’s dense population.
This model of agrarian development contrasted with that of rural
Spain elsewhere, which generally remained within the parameters
of a typical dryland agriculture in which traditional crops pre-
dominated, especially cereals. On the other hand, València’s indus-
trial development, driven by its dynamic agricultural sector, was
better than the national mean (though not on a par with that of
Catalonia or the Basque Country). Irrigation and climate combined
to enable Valencian agriculture to cultivate abundant fruit and
horticulture for export, as well as to satisfy a growing urban demand
for fresh fruits and vegetables.
As Calatayud argues, “The Valencian Community was thus
part of the continental ‘periphery’able to take advantage of the com-
parative advantages—of a climatic, economic and social type—to
17 This regime is based on extreme temperatures with cold winters and hot summers.
Although the thermal amplitude is moderate, the extreme thermal amplitude is high. The
average thermal amplitude is the difference between the average maximum and the average
minimum temperatures of a year. The extreme thermal amplitude measures the difference
between the hottest and the coldest day of a year.
258 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
supply primary products. This stimulus materialized when the
change in dietary diets in Europe, linked to new concepts of health
and nutrition and the rise in living standards, increased consumption
of fruits and vegetables.”He further remarks that irrigation and crop
specialization were due to “favourable conditions of temperatures
and sunshine that constituted the regional comparative advantage.”
18
To what extent did València’s unique situation also contribute
to well-being? What is the causal role between climate and stature?
As already known, climate, at least until recent decades, interacted
with a range of factors—diet, disease, and activity—potentially to
influence stature. Climate can affect stature through its direct effect
on the availability of food, agricultural production, the disease
environment (by, say, creating malaria-endemic areas and cholera
outbreaks), and on workload (in irrigated or unirrigated areas).
Finally, climate can influence stature through temperature, rain-
fall, and exposure to sunlight and the synthesis of vitamin D.
The literature contains numerous references to the dynamism
of the Valencian economy but also to its weakness given its unique
climatic conditions. As Vicente Gozálvez Pérez illustrates it, “Due
to rainfall and strong storms, in September 1884 there were floods
in the Segura, Turia and Júcar rivers, causing immense agricultural
losses in the Valencian orchards. The snowfall of 14–15 January
1885, with snow for over 8 days and temperatures of −7°C,
completely ruined the orange harvest. Exports to France, Italy,
England and Germany were paralyzed by these governments be-
cause of cholera, and as a consequence, there was a sharp depreci-
ation of export agriculture: rice, oranges, raisins, peanuts, hemp
and beans, and, in 1887 also of wine. In the last year, the crisis
in agricultural prices was disrupted by frost in February and an epi-
demic greatly affected infants and children from croup, measles
and smallpox, which remarkably increased mortality throughout,
especially in Castellón which rose to 34.7 percent.”
19
Thirty years earlier, Nadal also observed that “the year 1855
for the Valencian economy was one of the most fateful in its his-
tory. Frost in January, exceptional rainfall throughout the winter
and floods in spring. The result: bad harvests, with large losses in
the production of oranges and horticultural crops. Moreover, the
18 Calatayud, “Desarrollo agrario e Industrialización,”105–147.
19 Gozálvez Pérez, “Natalidad y mortalidad,”287–288.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |259
decadent silk industry suffered collapse with the absolute loss of
silkworm . . . because of the cold. Then the crisis of production
impacted trade...and the proletariat got almost no wages; the
immediate consequence was hunger, poverty and pauperism.”
20
SOURCES,DATA,AND METHODOLOGY
Climatic Data This article employs gridded climatic data
from Casty et al.—the only ones that report temperature and pre-
cipitation at the European level for years prior to 1900. These data
are available on a monthly basis between 1766 and 2000 at a grid
resolution of 0.5° by 0.5°, in which one grid cell represents a dis-
tance of around 55 km. The Casty data set is exceptional for a
climate field reconstruction that relies on instrumental readings
(avoiding multiproxy approaches and paleoclimate evidence),
each climatic variable independently estimated. Gridded fields
are generated by regressing a spatial network of station data against
modern gridded climate data, with the consideration of certain
controls, such as stationary behavior and long instrumental station
data. Figure 2 reports the mean and variation (by looking at the
coefficient of variation) of temperature and precipitation for the
eight available grid cells that lie within the Valencian region,
showing a significant amount of climatic variation across the dif-
ferent areas. Additionally, the statistics of the variables temperature
and precipitation for the Dickey Fuller test were −4.517 and
−11.818, respectively, below any of the critical values at 1 percent
(−3.504) and rejecting the null hypothesis for the climatic variables.
21
Heights in the Region of València The male heights for
Mediterranean Spain come from military records preserved in
the Sección de Quintas of eleven municipalities in the region of
València—five in the province of Alacant (Alcoi, Elx, Oriola, Pego,
and Villena), two in the province of Castelló (Castelló de la Plana
and Villareal), and four in the province of València (Alcira, Gandia,
Requena, and Sueca). The collection of data for this study comprises
men born between 1850 and 1949, a total of 120,582. Beginning in
the mid-nineteenth century, all Spanish men had to fulfiltheir
military obligations, the first step being a medical examination that
20 Jordi Nadal, La población española (siglos XVI a XX ) (Ann Arbor, 1973), 160.
21 Carreras, “Clima,”in idem and Tafunell (eds.), Estadísticas Históricas de España,33–76; Dell,
Jones, and Olken, “What Do We Learn?”749. Climatic data from Casty et al., “European
Pattern.”
260 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
recorded such anthropometric measurements as height, weight, and
chest circumference (although we have mostly transcribed height
data). The military replacement records were accompanied by a vast
array of documentation, including birth certificates, transfers into
other municipalities, migration records, etc.
The Recruitment Acts (the legislation that established the age of
conscription) mandated the measurement of men’s heights at the
ages of twenty between 1856 and 1885 for the first draft, of nineteen
between 1885 (second draft) and 1899, and of twenty between 1901
and 1905. Given that the conscripts of a given cohort were called
at different ages to undergo the medical examination, we re-
moved problems of age heaping. However, whereas a boy in a
well-nourished population might reach a mature height at the age
of eighteen or nineteen and a girl at the age of sixteen or seventeen,
Fig.2 Mean and Coefficient of Variation in Temperature and Rainfall
in the Grid Cells of Alacant, Castelló, and València, 1800–1999
NOTES One degree at the equator is about 111 km, and a half-degree at the equator is about
55 km. Above and below the equator, the circles defining the parallels of latitude get smaller until
they become a single point at the poles where the meridians converge. Yet, it is accurate to say that
in Spain, grids are separated by 55 km; in the tropics, this distance is 55.28 km (instead of 55).
SOURCE Carlo Casty et al., “A European Pattern Climatology 1766–2000,”Climate Dynamics,XXIX
(2007), 791–805, available at http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/pubs/casty2007/casty2007.html.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |261
nutritional problems during growth can delay mature height until
twenty to twenty-five years. Since the ages between nineteen and
twenty-one leave room for growth, we standardized the heights
for the different ages by calculating and comparing average heights
at the fiftieth percentile of the three generations of youths measured
at different ages but close in time (between 1895 and 1911).
22
Not surprisingly, our first group (those conscripted between 1895
and 1899, measured at nineteen years of age) was the shortest; our
second one (those conscripted between 1901 and 1905, measured at
twenty years of age), was taller; and our third one (those conscripted
between 1907 and 1911, measured at twenty-one years of age) was the
tallest. Hence, compared to those measured at the age of twenty-one,
the nineteen-year-olds had a further 1.2 cm to grow and the 20-year-
olds 0.4 cm; we added the respective height differentials to the
nineteen- and twenty-year-old recruits. We cannot use dummies to
control for the rate of growth at different ages because we do not have
different ages for the same cohorts, just for juxtaposed periods.
Since the data correspond to conscripted soldiers, and all men,
regardless of height, had to undergo a medical examination, this
conscript sample is representative of the Valencian population
without any selection issues. In the data set, 92.6 percent of the
conscripts were born in the region of València, 58.8 percent com-
ing from the provinces of Alacant, 17.9 percent from Castelló, and
23.3 percent from València. We can discount the possibility of any
effects of migration in the selection from the sample (for example,
taller people migrating to warmer areas to seek better employment);
the sample shows negligible migration patterns. According to Ayuda
and Puche, about 80 percent of the conscripts were born in the
municipalities where they enlisted; around 10 percent had migrated
to towns within the Valencian region; 5 percent had migrated to
the Spanish south while young (usually Murcia and Andalusia);
and the remaining 5 percent were born in another country.
23
22 For the attainment of mature height, see James M. Tanner, Growth at Adolescence: With a
General Consideration of the Effects of Hereditary and Environmental Factors upon Growth and Mat-
uration from Birth to Maturity (Oxford, 1962). If ages were otherwise self-reported at measure-
ment, the measurement error tends to decline over time as people gain human capital and
place more emphasis on knowing their birthday.
23 For the height adjustment with regard to age and migration, see Ayuda and Puche,
“Determinants of Height and Biological Inequality in Mediterranean Spain, 1859–1967,”
Economics and Human Biology, XV (2014), 101–119.
262 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
In addition to anthropometric data, military registers collected
detailed information about 2,638 occupations, which we grouped
into twelve categories using HISCLASS. Height clearly varies with
social class. The tallest recruits were from upper management
(above 168 cm), followed by high-level professionals, lower
managers, and clerical and sales personnel (at between 196 and
167 cm), and medium- and low-skilled workers and laborers
(165 cm). Farmers and fishermen were nearly the same size as un-
skilled farm workers at 164 cm, and the lower-skilled farm workers
were the shortest recruits, at 163 cm. Although unreported herein,
this range of heights closely matches a normal distribution of the
heights of the total population over time. Indeed, the standard de-
viation of the heights across different cohorts also remains fairly
constant over time. The small degree of height heaping in the
sample has only a marginal effect on the estimated final height.
24
Linking Individuals to their Birthplace We use the details about
the town/city of birth to link individuals to their climatic corre-
lates in space and time by assigning latitudes and longitudes to each
soldier in accordance with his place of birth. We link climatic data
to the place and the year in which an individual was born—the
time at which growth is most sensitive to environmental and
nutritional shock—in accordance with the growing consensus that
children recover from slow growth in their first thousand days
only with great difficulty. Moreover, focusing on the first year
of life allows us to identify members of the same cohort, while
acknowledging that final or mature height reflects the cumulative
impact of environmental and nutritional conditions throughout the
period of growth.
25
After geocoding all of the individuals by birthplace (Figure 3),
we linked their height data with their high-resolution climatic
24 For inequality in heights, see Ayuda and Puche “Determinants”; for age and height
heaping, Floud et al., Changing Body.
25 For recovery from slow growth in the first thousand days of life, see Cesar Gomes
Victora et al., “Worldwide Timing of Growth Faltering: Revisiting Implications for Inter-
ventions,”Pediatrics, CXXV (2010), e473–e480. We made corrections to the original names
only when they were misspelled—for example, La Torre d’en Besora (Castelló) for Torre de
Embesora,orGavarda (València) for Gabarda. Notably, the Spanish laws included the conven-
tion of changing former names in Valencian into their Castilian form. For example, Xàtiva was
recorded as Jativa,Poble de Vallbona as Puebla de Balbuena, and Vilamarxant as Villamarchante.We
translated names into original Valencian forms in order to locate them successfully.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |263
correlates using GIS (geographical information system) software
(ArcGIS), performing a spatial join based on location using the
Euclidean distance between the birthplace and the climatic grid
point. GIS analysis helps to match the individuals in the height
sample (by their birthplace) with high-resolution-indexed climatic
data by place and year of birth. As a result, temperature and pre-
cipitation are linked to each conscript: For man i, born in place k
in year t, we attached the gridded temperature and precipitation
in year tthat is closest to place kwith the aid of GIS software.
Temperature and precipitation change by birthplace, according to
latitude and longitude, and time, according to year of birth.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Seasonal Weather and Stature in València The next question is
whether a particular season (each of the four quarters of the year)
exerts a meaningful effect on stature. Examining the association
between climatic conditions and the month in which growth is
fastest, Tanner concluded, “The season of the year . . . exerts a
Fig.3 Number of Recruits Born between 1850 and 1949 by
Birthplace in the Region of València
NOTES The left-hand figure shows the number of men born in each of the comarques of the
Valencian region. The right-hand figure shows the exact place of birth together with the size
of the grid cell (at 0.5° by 0.5° resolution). A dot representing the place of birth in the right
figure can represent a group of individuals when reported under the same name.
264 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
considerable influence on velocity of growth, at least in west
European children. . . . Children grow faster in height in spring
and summer than in autumn and winter.”He found that the aver-
age May to November growth rate was 0.2 cm per year faster than
the rate between November and May, but he also maintained that
“the cause of the seasonal effect is not known. Presumably the en-
docrine system is affected by light or temperature or some other
climatic or just possibly some nutritional factor.”
26
Table 2 explores the impact of weather (as measured by the
different climatic seasons) on heights with the equation:
Heightit ¼αþβ1Temperatureit;sþβ2Rainfallit;sþβ3Elevationi
þβ4Populationi;1900 þβ5Illiteracyiþβ6Birth Decadei;p
þβ7Occupationi;lþβ8Placeof Measurementi;mþεtð1Þ
The dependent variable is stature for the individual iborn in year t.
Temperature and Rainfall indicate the seasonal temperature and
rainfall in each year t(s=winter, . . . , autumn); elevation varies with
each comarca of birth above sea level (in meters); population size
pertains to each comarca of birth in 1900; illiteracy refers to a matrix
of dummy variables for the recruits; birth decade runs from 1850 to
1940 ( p=1850, . . . .,1940); occupation corresponds to individuals’
reports (l=1, . . . ,12); place of measurement is the municipality where
arecruitwasmeasured(m=Alcoi, Alcira, ...,Villena); and ε
t
is
the error term. Model 1 shows the full sample, model 2 only non-
irrigated areas, and model 3 irrigated areas. For all the models in
Section 4, robust standard errors are clustered at the grid level
because the data set contains many individuals who share the same
temperature and precipitation grid cell.
27
The empirical design has at least four potential limitations
worth noting. First, given that recruiters recorded month of birth
only for those conscripted after the 1950s, all of the subjects have
been rounded to their birth year. This generalized adjustment can
be problematical because the eleven months’difference between
an individual born in, say, January and December of the same year
would leave room for further growth. Thus, when looking at the
26 Tanner, Growth,15;idem,“The Regulation of Human Growth,”Child Development,
XXXIV (1963), 821.
27 Population data for each comarca are from the census of 1900.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |265
impact of a climatic variable, this measurement gap could lead to
large standard errors with lower significance levels.
28
We can explore the seriousness of this bias by looking at the
number of births by month in the region of València. Figure 4,
which displays the proportion of births over the mean period,
shows that the number of births was not uniform by month,
changing throughout the twentieth century. Variability was more
pronounced before more recent decades. Sánchez-Albornoz found
that before 1900, the number of births tended to concentrate in
the months of January and May. Lent and the agricultural calendar
marked the patterns of gestation and birth—a rational strategy,
considering that during spring and autumn (during pregnancy),
food is abundant and disease exposure low. Figure 4 also indicates
that during the early twentieth century, humans were less reliant
on agriculture and seasonal fluctuations. The emergence of the
industrial sector and economic development in the 1930s and
1940s marked the decline of these fluctuations, equalizing the num-
ber of births across months.
29
Another important limitation in the model is that these results
beg the question of whether the climatic conditions in the first
year of life were contemporaneous—that is, whether the effects
28 It is possible to ascertain the month of birth by linking it with auxiliary secondary
sources, such as census or baptismal records. But this strategy would require substantial work
given our sample size.
29 Nicolas Sánchez-Albornoz, Jalones en la modernización de España (Barcelona, 1975).
Fig.4 Number of Births over the Monthly Mean (Mean=100)
NOTES The chart on the left shows data from 1863 to 1970 for the three provinces of the
region of València; the chart on the right shows the data for the region of València in three
different periods.
SOURCE Movimiento de Población de España, several issues.
266 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
of climatic conditions at t−1 are reflected in t(or tin t+1, etc.).
This question can be explained in terms of adaptive responses
related to growth: Did a child’s postnatal environment match
the prenatal conditions as reflected in the nutritional status of
the mother? A poor or a good rainfall season can affect a mother’s
net nutrition during the prenatal period and thus her child’s
growth trajectory; the availability of nutrients in the womb has a
bearing on health in later life. It is, indeed, at t−1 during the third
trimester that a foetus adds bulk. Our use of yearly data, however,
prevents us from controlling for shorter events.
The third caveat involves the way in which the irrigation vari-
able is organized; sampling men within a century means that irri-
gation systems could have undergone significant changes within
that timeframe for which we cannot fully control. For instance,
two municipalities classified as nonirrigated—Castelló de la Plana
and Elx—experienced rapid improvements in irrigation during
the 1920s that do not figure into our models. Finally, climatic inter-
actions are not represented per se in the equation since time trends
are already included in the climatic variables and birth decades.
30
Table 2 shows that temperature is positive and statistically
significant during the summer and winter months, but especially
during autumn. Hence, men born in years with warmer summers,
autumns, and winters tended to be taller. In nonirrigated areas,
however, temperatures are not statistically significant, whereas in
irrigated areas, only warmer winters and autumns are statistically
significant. The precipitation variable shows that spring and
summer rains were important for food production and that pre-
cipitation was much more influential in nonirrigated areas. Since
rice—a staple food intensely developed since the mid-nineteenth
century—and the majority of other crops are harvested in the
spring, the positive and statistically significant association between
stature and spring and summer months in nonirrigated areas is
hardly surprising.
Although few studies have investigated rainfall’seffecton
wheat yields, the Mancomunidad Hidrográfica del Ebro (1931), a
30 For adaptive responses in relation to growth, see Peter Gluckman and Mark Hanson,
“The Consequences of Being Born Small—An Adaptive Perspective,”Hormone Research,
LXV (2006), 5–14. We do not need to explore contemporaneous effects further. Future inves-
tigations would do well to take time lags into account since temperature and rainfall experienced
during t−1 may affect growth during t.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |267
Table 2 Stature and Seasonal Weather Variation in the Region of València
for the Cohorts Born between 1850 and 1949
TOTAL
SAMPLE
NONIRRIGATED
AREAS
IRRIGATED
AREAS
(1) (2) (3)
Winter temperatures 0.067* 0.040 0.066*
(0.024) (0.043) (0.024)
Spring temperatures −0.056 0.034 −0.095
(0.060) (0.055) (0.071)
Summer temperatures 0.053* 0.064 0.048
(0.022) (0.120) (0.029)
Autumn temperatures 0.117*** 0.084 0.124**
(0.029) (0.106) (0.037)
Winter rainfall −0.002 0.001 −0.003
(0.001) (0.004) (0.002)
Spring rainfall 0.001 0.007** −0.002
(0.003) (0.002) (0.004)
Summer rainfall 0.005** 0.005*** 0.005*
(0.001) (0.001) (0.002)
Autumn rainfall 0.002 −0.002 0.003
(0.002) (0.005) (0.002)
Elevation 0.000 −0.000 0.001
(0.000) (0.000) (0.001)
Population 0.000 0.000 0.000
(0.000) (0.000) (0.000)
Illiteracy −1.015*** −0.983*** −1.046***
(0.159) (0.038) (0.207)
BIRTH DECADE (REF. 1850)
1860 0.349* −4.934*** 0.435***
(0.125) (0.803) (0.073)
1870 0.143 −4.335*** 0.171
(0.488) (0.794) (0.620)
1880 1.563*** −4.620*** 0.718***
(0.252) (0.745) (0.229)
1890 1.607*** −4.813*** 1.807***
(0.239) (0.837) (0.162)
1900 1.715*** −4.215*** 1.847***
(0.278) (0.754) (0.253)
1910 2.318*** −3.581*** 2.451***
(0.335) (0.730) (0.360)
1920 2.230*** −3.691*** 2.380***
(0.230) (0.730) (0.344)
1930 3.281*** −2.146** 3.236***
(0.393) (0.700) (0.523)
1940 4.041*** −1.68 4.123***
(0.311) (0.792) (0.491)
Table 2 (Continued )
TOTAL
SAMPLE
NONIRRIGATED
AREAS
IRRIGATED
AREAS
(1) (2) (3)
OCCUPATION (REF.HISCLASS 2: HIGHER PROFESSIONALS)
Higher managers 1.070*** −1.357* −0.982*
(0.228) (0.541) (0.326)
Lower managers 0.259 0.393 0.236
(0.184) (0.652) (0.246)
Lower professionals, clerical, etc. 0.469 0.456 0.477
(0.224) (0.550) (0.267)
Lower clerical and salesmen −0.455 −0.721 −0.386
(0.290) (1.004) (0.311)
Medium-skilled workers 1.706*** 1.389* 1.822**
(0.207) (0.623) (0.267)
Farmers and fishermen −2.108*** −2.547*** −1.96***
(0.262) (0.596) (0.312)
Lower-skilled workers −0.816*** −1.031 −0.733**
(0.185) (0.551) (0.216)
Lower-skilled farm workers −0.952*** −1.201 −0.841*
(0.213) (0.639) (0.269)
Unskilled workers −0.613* −1.001 −0.506
(0.281) (0.573) (0.399)
Unskilled farm workers −1.348*** −1.205 −1.389***
(0.185) (0.604) (0.140)
PLACE OF MEASUREMENT (REF.CASTELLÓ DE LA PLANA)
Alcoi 0.049 −0.142 0.185
(0.209) (0.505) (0.262)
Alcira 0.276 −0.501 0.352
(0.196) (0.543) (0.268)
Elx −0.286 −0.358 −0.531
(0.198) (0.598) (0.309)
Gandia 1.207*** 0.930 1.221***
(0.099) (0.461) (0.140)
Oriola 0.407*** 0.171 0.427**
(0.049) (0.557) (0.101)
Pego 2.073*** 1.466* 3.447**
(0.256) (0.531) (1.042)
Requena 0.072 0.167 0.375
(0.186) (0.314) (0.504)
Sueca 0.652*** −1.035* 0.744**
(0.131) (0.461) (0.181)
Villarreal 1.018*** 0.678 1.031***
(0.099) (0.386) (0.120)
Villena 0.486** 0.511 0.790
(0.164) (0.363) (0.190)
Spanish Governmental Agency, reported a positive and significant
relationship between rainfall in spring and wheat harvests in dry
areas of the Saragossa and Osca provinces near València between
1914 and 1927. Clearly, in irrigated areas, rain is less important,
only needed during the summer months to avoid drought, which
ruins harvests and reduces the nutrients available in the soil for the
crop seasons to come. Otherwise, irrigated water could compen-
sate for a lack of rain.
31
Staple crops were collected and sold in the markets during the
autumn months, providing not only nutrients but also new sources
of income and savings in the form of cash crops that were much in
urban demand; warm temperatures before collection were crucial
for the fruits to mature. The grape harvest or vintage ran from
September through mid-October. As already noted, the expansion
of viticulture was the most important development in Valencian
agriculture during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Moreover, sunlight during the summer months provided 90 to
95 percent of the population’s vitamin D. Warmer temperatures
during the winter months were also positive and statistically sig-
nificant. Where temperatures were not extremely cold, as in the
irrigated areas close to the coast, workers in the fields or factories
were less physically taxed, because, as Bogin explained, they needed
to expend lower amounts of energy to maintain optimal temperature.
Table 2 (Continued )
TOTAL
SAMPLE
NONIRRIGATED
AREAS
IRRIGATED
AREAS
(1) (2) (3)
Constant 161.863*** 166.803*** 162.447***
(0.832) (2.023) (0.921)
Number of individuals 107,723 24,463 81,260
R-squared 0.078 0.084 0.077
*p< 0.05.
**p< 0.01.
***p< 0.001.
NOTE Robust standard errors are clustered at the grid level.
31 For the study of the Mancomunidad Hidrográfica, see José Domingo, “Correlación entre la
Lluvia y Cosecha de trigo en el secano de las Provincias de Zaragoza y Huesca,”Revista mensual de
la Mancomunidad Hidrográfica del Ebro, XLIX (1931), 1–4.
270 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
The body’s thermoregulatory process includes heat retention in
cold environments to avoid hypothermia and heat dissipation in
hot environments to avoid heat prostration.
32
Although elevation and population size are not statistically
significant, education is; illiterate recruits (defined as not being able
to read and write) were shorter by 1 cm. The association of height
with literacy is related to the connection between literacy and
greater human capital and better employment. Given those
in highly skilled occupationsas a reference group in Table 2
(HISCLASS 2: higher professionals), men with a highly skilled
occupation are taller than those who are unskilled or from the
working class. Indeed, farmers and fisherman were shorter than
professionals by nearly 2 cm. This income/wealth effect situates
lower-skilled farm workers as the shortest recruits, followed by
medium-skilled workers (probably because they worked in urban
centers), and unskilled and lower-skilled workers. The geograph-
ical controls show that height changed not only according to
climatic, educational, and professional levels but also according
to technological conditions. Location was important for the culti-
vation of highly valued crops, due to a combination of climatic and
environmental conditions; irrigation gave rise to a need for chem-
ical, biological, and mechanical resources and changes in produc-
tion methods (selected seeds, tube-wells, fertilizers, etc.). Irrigation
also had multiplier benefits. If oranges were grown at the expense of
other more profitable crops, the profits would have been lower. But
the penetration of oranges in the Valencian orchards was due to the
substitution of rice and other less profitable crops. Using Castelló de
la Plana, a nonirrigated area, as a reference, recruits measured in
irrigated areas were substantially taller than those in nonirrigated
areas (such as Requena and Villena) and urban areas (for example,
32 For the expansion of viticulture, see Garrabou, Un fals dilemma; for vitamin D, Michael
Holick, “Sunlight and Vitamin D for Bone Health and Prevention of Autoimmune Diseases,
Cancers, and Cardiovascular Disease,”American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, LXXX (2004),
1678S; Pérez Moreda, Reher, and Sanz Gimeno, La conquista. Barry Bogin, Patterns of Human
Growth (New York, 1999). Warm weather and unhealthy sanitary conditions might have
helped the spread of malaria to infants as well as older children. Since child labor was wide-
spread among boys ten and older, wetlands and irrigated areas could have negatively affected
the same individual at birth, during adolescence, and during adulthood. Although we would
like to track the influence of sunlight on children’s heights, good sunlight data are in short
supply for pre-1970 Spain.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |271
Elx and Alcoi). Those from orchard areas of Gandia, Pego, and
Villarreal were taller by about 1–2cm.
Interestingly, although Oriola and Sueca were irrigated areas,
they were also malaria-endemic areas in the mid-nineteenth century
(the orchards of Oriola and the rice fields of Sueca). Apparently,
certain irrigated areas also imposed an environmental penalty for
health. Hence, although they show taller heights than the reference
group, the coefficient is below that of other irrigated areas (Gandia,
Pego, and Villareal). In considering regional effects, note that the
most successful municipalities were not clustered in a single province
but were spread across the three provinces, eliminating concerns of
sample selection.
Height and Climate in Mediterranean Spain The effects of tem-
perature and rainfall on the height of the recruits is evaluated with
the equation
Heightit ¼αþβ1Temperatureit þβ2Rainfallit þΩþεt:(2)
The dependent variable is also stature for individual iborn in year
t;temperature and rainfall indicate the mean temperature and
rainfall in year tfor the individual i. We use the same controls
as in equation (1), denoted by Ω. Model 1 shows the full sample,
model 2 only nonirrigated areas, and model 3 irrigated areas.
Robust standard errors are also clustered at the grid level. The
results, as presented in Table 3, are that warm temperatures and
rainfall are positively related to heights in the irrigated areas and
that rainfall is more necessary in the dry areas. They confirm
A’Hearn’s previous claim that agriculture is more successful in
warmer areas since “warm temperatures did permit irrigated culti-
vation of vineyards or olive and citrus groves,”and irrigation com-
pensated for the lack of rain.
33
According to Simpson, “the relatively high labour produc-
tivity in parts of the Mediterranean owed much to a combination
of a warm climate, irrigation systems, artificial fertilisers and abun-
dant labour which permitted the production of high value crops.”
Despite the statistical insignificance of rainfall in nonirrigated areas,
the p-value is very low 0.087 and statistically significant at 0.1.
Hence, our models confirm that given the low rainfall patterns
33 A’Hearn, “The British Industrial Revolution,”in Floud, Jane Humphries, and Paul
Johnson (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Britain (New York, 2014), 26.
272 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
Table 3 Stature and Climate in the Region of València for the Cohorts Born
between 1850 and 1949
TOTAL
SAMPLE
NONIRRIGATED
AREAS
IRRIGATED
AREAS
(1) (2) (3)
Mean temperature 0.197*** 0.208 0.170**
0.044 0.129 0.052
Mean rainfall 0.006** 0.011 0.005
0.002 0.006 0.003
Elevation 0.000 −0.000 0.001
0.000 0.000 0.001
Population 0.000 0.000 0.000
0.000 0.000 0.000
Illiteracy −1.018*** −0.980*** −1.050***
0.157 0.036 0.205
BIRTH DECADE (REF. 1850)
1860 0.326* −4.945*** 0.407**
0.126 0.763 0.067
1870 0.148 −4.488*** 0.185
0.477 0.787 0.614
1880 1.658*** −4.607*** 1.823***
0.287 0.708 0.274
1890 1.702*** −4.815*** 1.915***
0.263 0.7559 0.137
1900 1.830*** −4.214*** 2.001***
0.309 0.732 0.252
1910 2.464*** −3.506*** 2.602***
0.355 0.719 0.356
1920 2.341*** −3.698*** 2.522***
0.203 0.713 0.296
1930 3.368*** −2.140** 3.341***
0.390 0.697 0.550
1940 4.114*** −1.651* 4.201***
0.314 0.757 0.497
OCCUPATION (REF.HISCLASS 2: HIGHER PROFESSIONALS)
Higher managers −1.074*** −1.347* −0.985*
0.230 0.530 0.324
Lower managers 0.249 0.393 0.224
0.186 0.640 0.242
Lower professionals, clerical, etc. 0.464 0.466 0.470
0.228 0.542 0.268
Lower clerical and salesmen −4.459 −0.697 −0.393
0.293 1.001 0.313
Medium-skilled workers 1.698*** 1.394* 1.817***
0.209 0.616 0.266
Table 3 (Continued )
TOTAL
SAMPLE
NONIRRIGATED
AREAS
IRRIGATED
AREAS
(1) (2) (3)
Farmers and fishermen −2.124*** −2.558*** −1.986***
0.264 0.590 0.318
Lower skilled workers −0.824*** −1.022 −0.740**
0.186 0.546 0.215
Lower-skilled farm workers −0.959*** −1.193 −0.848*
0.216 0.632 0.270
Unskilled workers −0.624* −0.995 −0.516
0.284 0.569 0.399
Unskilled farm workers −1.357*** −1.195 −1.401***
0.192 0.599 0.139
PLACE OF MEASUREMENT (REF.CASTELLÓ DE LA PLANA)
Alcoi 0.025 −0.099 0.248
0.190 0.494 0.276
Alcira 0.309 −0.477 0.398
0.195 0.525 0.262
Elx −0.218 −0.343 −0.411
0.171 0.592 0.268
Gandia 1.273*** 0.966* 1.308***
0.110 0.438 0.132
Oriola 0.499*** 0.209 0.558***
0.053 0.557 0.075
Pego 2.155*** 1.529* 3.524**
0.266 0.543 1.080
Requena 0.033 0.174 0.398
0.191 0.252 0.505
Sueca 0.688** −1.006 0.789***
0.132 0.476 0.172
Villarreal 1.016*** 0.684 1.030***
0.099 0.385 0.118
Villena 0.520** 0.531 0.866
0.145 0.360 1.895
Constant 161.044*** 166.954*** 161.294***
0.781 2.012 0.832
Number of individuals 107,723 26,463 81,260
R-squared 0.078 0.084 0.077
*p< 0.05.
**p< 0.01.
***p<0.001.
NOTE Robust standard errors are clustered at the grid level.
in the region of València, the favorably warm temperatures were
the region’s comparative advantage for the cultivation of highly
valuable crops. The results about the impact of temperature on
stature, although small, are statistically significant and plausible.
We can attribute 0.2 cm of the height increase to the increase in
temperature that was around 1°C during the period under review.
The results of the additional controls, such as elevation and pop-
ulation size, are similar to those presented in Table 2 and are not
discussed herein.
34
Technophysio Evolution in Mediterranean Spain Finally, Figure 5
reports the beta coefficients of the interaction between stature and
temperature and rainfall with the 95 percent confidence interval,
using the same controls as in equation (2) with robust standard errors
also clustered at the grid level. According to Fogel and Costa’sout-
line of the theory of technophysio evolution for the last 300 years,
particularly during the last century, humans have gained an unprec-
edented degree of control over, and freedom from, the constraints of
their environments, including climate. The interaction of climate
with decade of birth clearly shows the extent to which humans have
been able to take ever-more advantage of environmental features
during the last decades, and how the relationship between climate
variables and stature has changed over time.
35
34 Simpson, Long Siesta, 256.
35 Robert Fogel and Dora Costa, “A Theory of Technophysio Evolution, with Some
Implications for Forecasting Population, Health Care Costs, and Pension Costs,”Demography,
XXXIV (1997), 49–66.
Fig.5 Interaction of Temperature and Precipitation with Birth
Decade in Irrigated and Nonirrigated Areas, 1860–1940
NOTES The year 1950 was the reference year. Controls are the same as those in equation (1).
Robust standard errors are clustered at the grid level.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |275
The positive effects of temperature and precipitation increased
over time, both in irrigated and nonirrigated areas, although in non-
irrigated areas, the effect became less negative and nonsignificant
statistically in the 1940s. This more positive effect was due to such
effective coping strategies as advanced technology, reduced eco-
nomic disparities between rural and urban populations, and improved
labor conditions. An important change in the early twentieth century,
associated with better farming practices and adaptation to environ-
mental conditions, was the nutritional transition (changes in the
composition of diet and food availability) that occurred in Spain
from the 1920s to the 1930s. According to Cussó and Garrabou,
the diet of the Spanish population did not begin to improve until
the 1920s and 1930s, shifting from a monotonous regime of bread,
potatoes, and legumes to a richer variety of meat, milk, animal fats,
fruits, and vegetables. Climate was still statistically significant in the
years after 1920. Its more positive impact was due to further climatic
adaptation in agriculture and technological development in industry
as part of Spain’s modernization and accelerated economic growth.
36
During the 1920s and 1930s, Spain’s government also began to
spendmoreonpublichealthandsafetynets,whichhelpedto
overcome environmental and climatic penalties. Despite the Spanish
Civil War (1936–1939) and its aftermath, new public-health initiatives
(even if small) reduced the incidence of such infectious diseases as
diarrhoea; by 1960, diarrhoea and enteritis represented just 1.6 percent
of total deaths. Malaria was not eradicated until the 1930s after the
establishment of the Dispensarios Antipalúdicos (anti-malaria centers),
the draining of the marshes, and, eventually, the application of DDT.
The literature also stresses the contribution of rural credit cooperatives
to the financial and technological success of small farms during the first
third of the twentieth century. The aim of these cooperatives was
to alleviate financial hardships during periods of poor harvest, to facil-
itate technical changes, and to improve access to product markets.
37
36 Xavier Cussó and Garrabou, “The Nutritional Transition in Contemporary Spain: The
Evolution of the Intake of Bread, Potatoes and Pulses (1850–2000),”Investigaciones de Historia
Económica, III (2007), 69–100.
37 For government spending, see Espuelas Barroso, La Evolución del Gasto Social Público en
España, 1850–2005 (Madrid, 2013); for the decline in diarrhea, Pérez Moreda, Reher and Sanz
Gimeno, La conquista. Martínez-Soto, Martinez-Rodriguez, and Mendez, “Spain’s Develop-
ment of Rural Credit Cooperatives from 1900 to 1936: The Role of Financial Resources
and Formal Education,”European Review of Economic History, XVI (2012), 449–468.
276 |GALOFRÉ-VILÀ, MARTÍNEZ-CARRIÓN, AND PUCHE
This article explores the extent to which short- and medium-term
climatic changes in Mediterranean Spain between 1850 and 1949
were reflected in men’s height. Using a large collection of Spanish
military recruits in València, we linked heights with new high-
resolution, gridded climatic data about temperature and precipita-
tion, and, with the aid of GIS software, matched individuals in the
height sample with geographically indexed climatic data. Climate,
however, is only one of the factors that can influence health; human
welfare has important dimensions that are unrelated to it. This anal-
ysis shows that climate has its most meaningful effect on adult height
in the year of birth. It also shows that the combination of modern
agriculture and a warm climate not only conferred benefits on re-
gional economic development; it also made men grow taller, espe-
cially those in irrigated rural areas. Furthermore, despite a lack of
rain, and regardless of geography, new adaptive strategies after World
War I (new seed varieties, irrigation, and refrigeration) interacted
positively with the warm Mediterranean climate to improve nutri-
tion. Thus, even the poor could secure a much more varied diet than
that which was available to them at the start of the previous century.
This article’sfindings are particularly relevant for the current
discussion about how climate affects developing areas such as sub-
Saharan Africa and how to set developmental policy goals. Even
poor, underdeveloped, and malnourished populations living on
unproductive land with a shortage of rainfall, such as the Spaniards
in the Region of València in the nineteenth century, can learn to
take advantage of a warm climate and, through technological
change and the cultivation of cash crops, to diversify their econo-
mies and start a process of fast growth.
HEIGHT AND CLIMATE IN SPAIN |277
