John Komlos (born 28 December 1944) is an American

economic historian Economic history is the academic learning of economies or economic events of the past. Research is conducted using a combination of historical methods, statistical methods and the application of economic theory to historical situations and ins ...

of Hungarian descent and former holder of the chair of economic history at the

University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

Personal life

Komlos was born in 1944 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

in Hungary during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

. After becoming refugees during the 1956 revolution, his family fled to the

USA The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

where Komlos finally grew up in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Career

Komlos received a PhD in

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

in 1978 and a second PhD in economics in 1990 from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. After inspired by

Robert Fogel Robert William Fogel (; July 1, 1926 – June 11, 2013) was an American economic historian and scientist, and winner (with Douglass North) of the 1993 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. As of his death, he was the Charles R. Walgreen D ...

to work on the history of human height, Komlos devoted most of his academic career developing and expanding the research agenda that became known as

Anthropometric history Anthropometric history is the study of the history of human height and weight. The concept was formulated in 1989 although it has historical roots. In the 1830s, Adolphe Quetelet and Louis R. Villermé studied the physical stature of populations. ...

, the study of the effect of economic development on human biology as indicated by the physical stature or the obesity rate prevalence of a population. Komlos was a fellow at the Carolina Population Center of the

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States ...

from 1984 to 1986. He worked as a professor of economics and of economic history at the University of Munich for eighteen years before his retirement. In 2003, Komlos founded ''

Economics and Human Biology ''Economics and Human Biology'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Elsevier since 2003. It is an interdisciplinary periodical covering research on biological economics — economics in the context of human biology and health ...

'', a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on biological economics, economics in the context of human biology and health. In 2013, he was elected a Fellow of the

Cliometric Society Cliometrics (, also ), sometimes called new economic history or econometric history, is the systematic application of economic theory, econometric techniques, and other formal or mathematical methods to the study of history (especially social and e ...

Works

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References

External links

List of publications
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Komlos, John Economic historians Hungarian emigrants to the United States 1944 births Living people Duke University faculty Academic journal editors Auxologists