Anthropometric Dividends of Czechoslovakia's Break Up

Processes of transition to democracy and economic liberalisation stand out as ‘natural experiments’ to estimate the impact of wide institutional reform on well-being. One way to measure such effects is by using changes in population stature as virtuous pointers of well-being improvements in psycho-social environments. The latter are argued to improve with democracy, at least for some population subgroups. This paper examines individual heights in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after the transition to democracy and capitalism following the split up of Czechoslovakia. We find that an additional year spent under democracy increases population height by 0.286cm for Slovaks and 0.148cm for Czech. However, these effects are largely heterogeneous. That is, they are mainly driven by changes in stature among men among men alone. Slovaks heights increased more than the Czechs in the bottom and mid tercile. Independence appears to have reduced the height gap between Czech Republic and Slovakia. Results were robust to using some alternative datasets and specifications.