Historical studies show that the average height of Western European children began its secular growth in 1850 only after a period of decline and stagnation which had started around 1750. We argue that the initial downturn in heights is related to the demographic transition, and show that an extension of the neoclassical model of economic growth can explain the observed phenomena. We test whether the predictions of the model hold for a cross-section of contemporary countries, and we find that stature is indeed negatively associated with income per capita and fertility for countries with an income per capita below a given threshold. As a final exercise, we ask whether these cross-country estimates explain the improvement in children's height observed in the last hundred and fifty years.
