Slave prices,the African slave trade,and productivity in the Caribbean, 1674–18071

We draw wide‐ranging implications about slave productivity change by making use of newly collected data on the prices paid for nearly 230,000 slaves as they arrived in the Americas from Africa between 1674 and 1807. Prices for the product that most slaves were destined to produce‐sugar‐are also available. Together the comprehensive series allow us to derive annual measures of average slave productivity and to compare productivity trends across different sectors of the Caribbean. Average productivity rose throughout the Caribbean, and the pattern of average productivity change across regions was similar, indicating an open slave market. These averages mask sharp differences in the growth of demand for slaves among regions, as reflected by their slave populations. Between 1700 and 1790 the increase in demand ranged from 90 per cent in Barbados to 600 per cent in Jamaica and Cuba; while total factor productivity overall may have doubled. The slave trade accommodated the rising demand. It also served to offset population attrition among the slaves.     

The costs of survival: The transport of slaves in the middle passage and the profitability of the 18th-century British slave trade

This paper argues that the slave cargo itself and its peculiar transport requirements in the middle passage were more prominent factors in shaping the pattern of profits in the British slave trade than historians have traditionally assumed. It appears that slaves were relatively expensive to transport but were subject to heavy and unpredictable levels of mortality in transit. It is suggested that, together with the competitive market structure surrounding the trade, these two factors are important in explaining not only the apparently moderate rates of average profits achieved by 18th-century British slave traders but also the highly variable pattern of profits between voyages.     

The economic geography of race in the New World: Brazil, 1500–2000†

Race is a fundamental aspect of historical inequality and institutions, yet it is at times overlooked within the literature on comparative development in the Americas. This article investigates the nature of staple production in Brazil and attendant changes in the racial composition of 20 modern states from its discovery by the Portuguese to the present. The Indigenous population was surpassed by that of African descent in the north‐east, south‐east, and north, respectively, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries; not until decades after the abolition of slavery did people of European heritage come to constitute a majority. These transitions were guided by the relative productivity, natural increase, and price of Native and African slaves, contingent on the extent of natural resource wealth (mineral deposits or land suitable for growing cash crops) and supply of free labour. In those areas where slavery was most profitable, a 1 per cent increase in the relative cost of Native labour raised the proportion of people of African ancestry by up to 2 per cent, depending on the measures of slave prices and racial classifications considered. This relationship is robust to changes in output prices or the populace of European descent, and alternative scenarios of aboriginal population decline.     

Demographic trends in late-slavery Jamaica, 1817–32

Early nineteenth-century demographic trends on sugar estates in Jamaica, the most important British Caribbean colony, are examined through the 1817–32 public slave registers. We seek evidence regarding the background to the island's 1831–2 popular insurrection, the immediate cause of the London parliament's vote in 1833 to abolish colonial slavery. Some historians argue that the revolt occurred as ‘political’ effect from a sudden upsurge of metropolitan anti-slavery activism in 1830–1. They believe the uprising broke out despite improvement in enslaved people's material welfare, favoured by many slaveholders to secure population increase after the closure of the British transatlantic slave trade in 1808. Alternative ‘economic’ assessments judge that increasing workloads had been aggravating popular unrest before the revolt. Commercial pressures, and the imminent likelihood of emancipation, allegedly outweighed welfare concerns. The excess of slave deaths over births widened between 1817 and 1832. However, the registers show that demographic deficits resulted mainly from the ageing of the last Africa-born cohorts. Jamaica-born enslaved people became self-reproducing. There was no general pre-1831 regime deterioration. Most slaveholders sought to maintain their Jamaican assets for the long term through pro-natalist measures, and did not expect emancipation. The revolt's causes were thus more ‘political’ than ‘economic’.     

The industrial retardation of southern cities, 1860–1880

Industrial retardation of the South is traced to the southern slave plantation with its vested interest in labor, whereas the Midwest joined the manufacturing belt based on the extensive industrial demands derived from the free family farm with its vested interest in land. The analyses focus on 304 cities in the East, Midwest, and South for the period 1860–1880. Industries in the published censuses were given two-digit SIC codes. The results demonstrate that midwestern cities had significantly larger industrial sectors and different specializations than southern cities by 1860. During the 1860s midwestern cities' industrial growth substantially outpaced southern cities, and differences between the two regions' cities continued to grow up to 1880.     

城市规模的工资溢价——基于全国流动人口动态监测数据

文章运用2014年中国流动人口动态监测数据,分析城市规模的工资溢价是否存在,并探讨其产生的机制。研究表明,在控制可观测的能力特征、城市所处的区域差异后,城市规模的工资溢价存在,进一步控制选择偏差后城市规模的工资溢价仍然显著。但根据生活成本对名义工资进行调整后,大城市的工资溢价出现工资劣势。反事实估计表明,流入中小城市的流动人口如果进入100万以上人口城市,其工资将有小幅提高,但其提高幅度不足以激励流动人口离开中小城市。溢价产生机制分析表明,稠密市场效应和学习效应,是城市规模工资溢价的原因。     

身份认同对流动人口家庭在流入地消费的影响

流动人口在城市的社会融合是健康城市化的重要内容，并且其本身也产生众多经济影响。文章利用2014年国家卫计委"流动人口社会融合与心理健康专题调查"的调查数据，分析流动人口不同的本地城市人身份认同对其家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构的影响。由于身份认同受到很多因素影响，具有内生性，因此我们在OLS基准回归之外，采用流动人口"本地话掌握水平"及"流出地土地面积"作为工具变量处理可能的内生性问题。我们也进行了替代变量的稳健性检验以及各种异质性检验。我们发现流动人口不同的身份认同程度对家庭消费水平、家庭消费结构有显著影响：更认同本地城市人身份的流动群体消费更高、恩格尔系数更低。同时，身份认同的消费影响在不同群体间存在一定异质性：这种效应对于年长的流动人口以及农村户籍流动人口更显著，这些异质性发现也符合预期。文章也进行了影响的可能机制检验，发现认可本地人身份的流动人口更倾向于在本地买房、长期工作生活和落户，减少在老家购房和生活的可能。研究结果对认识身份认同经济影响有一定学术价值；同时，文章的政策含义是，促进流动人口本地身份认同可以促进城市消费活力和居民生活质量。     

Slave prices from succession and bankruptcy sales in Mauritius, 1825–1827

We construct a unique data set from succession and bankruptcy sales in Mauritius to investigate the determinants of slave prices between 1825 and 1827. We find that males, females sold with children, skilled slaves and slaves sold during the peak sugar cane harvest season all fetched higher prices. In comparison, handicapped and non-native slaves were sold at a discount. Moreover, the young child premium increased over the period. This may indicate that slave owners did not anticipate that slavery would be abolished in the near future or thought that they would be compensated in such an event.     

Population Ageing and Pension System Reform in China: A Computable Overlapping-Generations General Equilibrium Model Analysis

Over the next 50 years, China will face an increase of its old-age population by approximately three times. Such a demographic change may result in a large increase of pension payments, which would require a significant rise in the pension contribution rate. This also implies important intergenerational redistribution issues and may even harm living standards as a whole. This paper analyses for China the economic impact of an ageing population by means of a computable dynamic general equilibrium model with an overlapping generations structure. The paper explores the effect on the social security system and economic development of China under alternative scenarios for the benefit rates on pensions, retirement age and technological progress. Our research indicates that a pension reform plus positive technological progress can compensate for the menace of a decline in living standards for both seniors and working generations.     

A new perspective on antebellum slavery: Public policy and slave prices

Modern economic historians have focused their attention on the supervision and productivity of slavery and have largely ignored the roles that public policy and slave security played in the profitability of antebellum slavery. Other scholars have focused on the public security policy in the slave codes, but only as a determinant of the legal status of slaves, not their economic value. This paper investigates the relationship between slave prices and two public policies that enhanced slave security: manumission laws and slave patrol statutes. The evidence suggests that these policies were associated with slave prices and that public policy did play a significant role in the security of slave property and, thus, the viability and profitability of slavery in the Antebellum South.     

GDP in the Dutch Cape Colony: The National Accounts of a Slave‐Based Society

New estimates of the gross domestic product of the Dutch Cape Colony (1652‐1795) suggest that the Cape was one of the most prosperous regions during the eighteenth century. This stands in sharp contrast to the perceived view that the Cape was an “economic and social backwater,” a slave economy with slow growth and little progress. Following a national accounts framework, we find that Cape settlers' per capita income is similar to the most prosperous countries of the time – Holland and England. We trace the roots of this result, showing that it is partly explained by a highly skewed population structure and very low dependency ratio of slavery, and attempt to link the eighteenth‐century Cape Colony experience to twentieth‐century South African income levels.     

Legacies of loss: The health outcomes of slaveholder compensation in the British Cape Colony

Can wealth shocks have intergenerational health consequences? We use the partial compensation slaveholders received after the 1834 slave emancipation in the British Cape Colony to measure the intergenerational effects of a wealth loss on longevity. We find that a greater loss of slave wealth shortened the lifespans of the generation of slaveholders that experienced the shock albeit these effects are usually small and mostly confined to older cohorts of slaveholders who likely exploited slaves both as labor and capital inputs. The lifespans of those of the second generation who survived infancy were unaffected by the shortfalls and no effects of the shortfall were found for the third generation.     

自由贸易港建设背景下海南省流动人口居留意愿研究

自由贸易港建设是中国经济改革开放的新里程碑,也是国家重大发展战略的一部分。利好政策的实施会吸引大量流动人口前往自由贸易港地区,以追求更好的经济机会和生活质量。2018年海南省流动人口总数2140244人,2022年3001955人,年均增长8.83%,总量虽增加明显,但体量仍较小。设计调查问卷,利用SPSSAU统计平台分析调查数据,探讨海南自由贸易港建设背景下影响流动人口居留意愿的关键因素。研究发现,就业机会和住房负担是影响流动人口居留决策的重要因素。     

The scope and structure of the Danish negro slave trade

Abstract

The aim of this study is to determine the scope and structure of the Danish negro slave trade in the second half of the eighteenth century. This, it will be shown, did not consist merely of a Danish triangular slave trade within a closed Danish mercantilist colonial system: it was based upon extensive cooperation with other slave trading nations both in Africa and the West Indies. The Danish slave trade embraced three branches: slaves imported into St. Croix for employment, a transit slave trade at St. Thomas and a triangular slave trade. The present paper examines these largely independent aspects of the Danish slave trade, surveys the economic background and attempts to elucidate the edict of 16 March 1792, abolishing the trade.     

劳动人口减少后对中国未来的影响

在经济全球化时代,人口这一资源早已纳入全球配置之中。虽然目前劳动力还不能自由流动,但在本国生产出口货物,就视同于人口资源出口。而我国目前严格的生育政策,不仅会产生不利于本国人民生活的结局,也将给世界经济带来重大影响。在发达国家相继进入老龄化的时候,如果中国也紧随其后步入老龄化阶段,将对自己的发展极其不利。如果中国能继续保持相对充裕的人力资源,对全球则是个有益的补充。     

包容性发展与老龄者宜居城市建设

包容性发展的内涵强调以人为本,其核心价值契合了宜居城市建设理念。宜居,是城市建设的重要理念和基础条件,包容性是宜居城市的重要指标之一。人口老龄化对宜居城市建设提出新要求,要实现老有所居、老有所乐、老有所求、老有所养等价值,有必要探讨城市老龄者公共服务的跟进、老年人居住政策以及环境的协调发展。宏观层面加强老龄者宜居的城市大环境建设,实现老年人生活便利化、公共安全保障、居住保障;中观层面重视社区建设,完善社区养老服务功能;微观层面进行老龄者居室无障碍化建设。同时,需要政府转变城市管理观念,在城市系统建设及微观领域应对老龄问题加强政策指导和调控,加强城市为老服务信息化建设,不断充实城市养老助老服务人才保障,并调动家庭和社会力量承担共同责任。     

The City of London and slavery: evidence from the first dock companies, 1795–18001

Through analysing the composition of the founding shareholders in the West India and London Docks, this article explores the connections between the City of London and the slave economy on the eve of the abolition of the slave trade. It establishes that over one‐third of docks investors were active in slave‐trading, slave‐ownership, or the shipping, trading, finance, and insurance of slave produce. It argues that the slave economy was neither dominant nor marginal, but instead was fully integrated into the City's commercial and financial structure, contributing materially alongside other key sectors to the foundations of the nineteenth‐century City.     

Productivity in the Transatlantic Slave Trade

The paper employs a standard production function to measure total factor productivity in the transatlantic slave trade, mainly French and British, between 1673 and the mid-19th century. Substantial new data are new added to the Mettas-Daget data set to yield evidence of 13,000 slaving voyages, of which 1800 have sufficient information for an analysis of total factor productivity. The main findings are that English slave traders were more efficient than their French counterparts. Much of this difference is associated with speedier voyages. Major swings in productivity occurred over time and across national groupings of slave traders together, suggesting that supply conditions in Africa were partly responsible. No secular improvement in productivity is apparent until the 19th century.     

Indian lands, “Squatterism,” and slavery: Economic interests and the passage of the indian removal act of 1830

In May 1830, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed the Indian Removal Act that authorized the president of the United States to exchange land west of the Mississippi River for Indian land in the east and appropriated $500,000 to assist tribes in the move west. Three days later the House also passed the Preemption Act of 1830, giving squatters a right of first refusal to purchase land they had occupied prior to its being opened for sale. In a recent paper, Kanazawa (1996) finds that the willingness of squatters to illegally occupy federal lands greatly raised the cost of enforcing property rights and this was a significant factor behind the passage of the first general Preemption Act in 1830. We build on his work to test the hypothesis that Congressmen who favored squatters’ rights would also favor moving Indian tribes out of the old southwest. A logit analysis of the vote on the Removal Act of 1830 shows three statistically significant variables. Democrats, representatives from slaveholding districts, and those who voted for preemption were more likely to vote for removal. Congressmen from slave states were very likely to favor both Acts, which stands in contrast to southern opposition to a homestead act in the late 1850s.     

The biological standard of living in early nineteenth‐century West Africa: new anthropometric evidence for northern Ghana and Burkina Faso1

West Africans are on average shorter than Europeans today. Whether this was already the case at the end of the Atlantic slave trade is an important question for the history of nutrition and physical welfare. We present the first study of changing heights for people born mostly in what are now northern Ghana and Burkina Faso during the early nineteenth century. The dataset, not used before for anthropometry, documents men born between 1800 and 1849. Mostly purchased from slave owners, they were recruited into the Dutch army to serve in the Dutch East Indies. We find that height development was stagnant between 1800 and 1830 and deteriorated strongly during the 1840s. In international comparison and after taking selectivity issues into account, these Ghanaian and Burkinabe recruits were notably shorter than north‐western Europeans but not shorter than southern Europeans during this period.