Convict Transportation to New South Wales, 1787–1849: Mortality Rates Reconsidered

Previous research into Australian convict transportation has concluded that a significant downturn in mortality rates occurred with the appointment of naval surgeons as superintendents in 1815. Statistical analysis of convict ships sent to New South Wales between 1787 and 1849 shows a more significant downturn occurred in 1800, following the introduction of closer supervision of ships' surgeons. The contracting system established by the Navy Board in 1786 for the transportation of convicts to New South Wales could be made to work as long as government maintained an effective system of inspection and supervision.     

Human capital and the pre-Famine Irish emigration to England

This paper analyzes the human capital resources of pre-Famine Irish emigrants to England. The data source comprises over 16,000 Irish and English convicts transported to New South Wales between 1817 and 1839. The convict indents distinguish between those convicts transported directly from Ireland (the stayers) and those Irish-born transportees convicted and sent from England (the emigrants). A comparison of the skill, literacy, and age characteristics of the stayers and emigrants suggests that Ireland lost skilled workers in the pre-Famine period. A logit micromigration model confirms the “brain-drain” hypothesis for Irish workers emigrating to Britain. Finally, the human capital of the Irish emigrants is found to compare favorably with that of the native English workers transported to Australia.     

CONTRACTING CONVICTS: THE CONVICT LABOUR MARKET IN VAN DIEMEN's LAND 1840–1857

The place of penal transportation in Australia's economic history has always been controversial. Convict workers were frequently denigrated as worse than useless, yet without convicts the settlements would have lacked sufficient labour for development. In Van Diemen's Land in the 1840s, convicts constituted more than half the labour supply, and if emancipists are included it was more like three-quarters. After transportation to New South Wales was halted in 1840, amidst claims that the assignment of convict labour was akin to slavery, Van Diemen's Land continued to receive transportees but adopted a new form of labour management: the so-called 'probation system'. To distinguish the new probation system from the 'slavery' of assignment, wages were paid to convict workers. This study uses 17,997 convict employment contracts to explore the labour market for convict passholders at the probation period. Actions speak louder than words, and irrespective of what might have been said about convict quality, by the end of transportation in 1853 convict workers were eagerly engaged at rising wages by employers desperate for labour.     

A new look at the New South Wales Corps, 1790–1810

This paper shows the New South Wales Corps as a changing entity with a considerable impact on the New South Wales economy until 1810. Findings include the large number of men (1,645) who served in New South Wales, while the total population was less than 5,000, and the importance of the Corps as a source of free settlers in the period before free immigration. Convicts were recruited locally and as a group outweighed arrivals from the Savoy Military Prison, cited in the past as the bad element in the Corps. The Corps contained a reasonably high proportion of skilled men who contributed formally and informally to the colony’s productivity both before and after discharge. The study shows that the officer group was relatively stable before 1800 but that turnover was fairly high thereafter. Finally it is shown that the influence of the New South Wales Corps did not cease with its recall, for well over half the regiment remained in the colony, some seventy–one as settlers and 356 as troops under Macquarie’s command — including a special Veteran Corps.     

South Africa in the Australian mirror: per capita real GDP in the Cape Colony,Natal, Victoria,and New South Wales, 1861–1909

This article compares the real GDP per capita of the Cape Colony and Natal between 1861 and 1909 with that of Australia's two most developed colonies, Victoria and New South Wales. Estimates of European and non‐European GDP per capita for both South African colonies are also provided. Together, this information allows for the first time an evaluation of the growth performance of these important parts of the South African economy in the colonial era. The article concludes that South African performance in this period was stronger than often assumed and that by the beginning of the twentieth century European South Africans, now more fully integrated into a British World economy, operated at a level of GDP per capita that matched and in some places may have exceeded that of Australians. Non‐European South Africans, however, did not share in these same advances.     

Tied Houses, Taxes, and Technology: Concentration in the Brewing Industry of New South Wales, 1882 to 1932

The brewing industry in New South Wales reached its numerical peak of about eighty breweries in the 1880s, and then declined to five breweries by the 1930s. Three of these, controlled by two firms, supplied virtually the whole state. This numerical ebb represents a process of industry concentration, driven by the necessity to maximize efficiency through economies of scale. This article examines increased concentration through cost pressures which encouraged it, and transport and other improvements which facilitated it. The former included: restrictive licensing, licence reduction, and diminishing demand, and the consequent need to tie hotels to secure markets; the colonial beer duty, the federal beer excise, and related government supervision; and the introduction of new technology to the brewing industry to satisfy changing fashions. Accompanying its numerical decline went a spatial contraction, the result of market expansion by Sydney breweries, facilitated by rail transport and by improvements in the chemical stability of beer.     

Musket War and Musket trade: The New South Wales to New Zealand firearms trade, 1829–1840

The intertribal Musket wars that spread throughout Māori society in the 1820s and 1830s have received much attention from historians. This is also true of the history of trade between New South Wales and New Zealand occurring at the same time. However, at present, the link between these two phenomena remains poorly established. This article draws on the primary material available about the trans-Tasman arms trade from a relatively untapped source, Sydney newspapers, revealing the surprising extent of this commerce and the fact that firearms imports peaked in the early 1830s. This information necessarily requires revision of our understanding of the Musket wars themselves.     

The ‘alien invasion’ in South Africa: Illegal immigrants in Durban

Although South Africa's emerging non‐racial democracy has been internationally acclaimed, global integration has also brought its problems. One of these is the greater number of illegal immigrants entering the country. This article examines the problem of illegal immigration by focusing on an intensive case study in the locality of Durban. It attempts to identify reasons for illegal immigrants coming to South Africa, ascertain their country of origin, investigate the consequences of their stay in the Republic, identify problems associated with immigrants, and assess policy options to reduce the influx of aliens. The study reveals that the majority of illegal immigrants come to South Africa in search of better economic opportunities. However, they are accused of taking away the jobs of locals, lowering wages and spreading diseases. Although official government policy towards illegals is embodied in the Aliens Control Act (1991), there is a need to understand the problem within its regional and historical context.     

Wages and wage policy: Australia in the Depression, 1924–34

The starting–point for this examination of the Australian wage–fixing system during the Great Depression is the recent conclusion by Gregory, Ho, and McDermott that the Commonwealth Court was ineffective in its attempt to impose a 10 per cent reduction in real wages. They argue that labour markets, centralized and decentralized, resisted the 10 per cent cut, so that wage policy played no part in the recovery from the Depression. By surveying the decisions and influence of the Commonwealth Court, and the wage–fixing institutions and wage outcomes in Victoria and New South Wales, this article concludes that the hypothesis of Gregory et al. cannot be supported. Contemporary views were closer to the mark.     

The Motivation and Effectiveness of Gas Industry Economic Regulation in New South Wales, 1912–39

The oldest industry in Australia subjected to economic regulation is the gas supply industry in the state of New South Wales. In this paper the aims and motivation of the New South Wales Government in establishing the regulatory regime in 1912 and the subsequent effectiveness in achieving them are determined. Initially the regulatory regime was based on ad hoc arrangements, but eventually a more permanent structure was devised that effectively defused political controversy over gas market pricing and stabilised prices rather than substantially lowered them.     

We Used to Get and Give a Lot of Help: Networking,Cooperation and Knowledge Flow in the Hunter Valley Wine Cluster

The Hunter Valley, New South Wales, is both Australia's oldest continually producing wine region and a highly functioning wine business cluster. New generation cluster actors perceive that the region's concentration of historic family‐based firms has contributed to its strength. We have used rarely consulted and newly accessioned evidence from the 1820s to the 1920s to qualitatively test the extent to which early networking created pathways for knowledge flow in the region. Our cross‐disciplinary research into the historic depth of embedded cooperation reveals a little known feature of early Australian business history and complements the more commonplace breadth approach in cluster studies.     

Black immigrants in the U.S. labor market: An earnings analysis

This article investigates the existence and sources of earnings differentials between black Americans and black immigrants, and between black and nonblack immigrants. Employing the Public Use Sample of the 1980 census, the gross earnings differentials between black immigrants and black Americans are estimated to be 8.7 percent in favor of Americans (i.e., Americans earn 8.7 percent more than immigrants). About 2 percentage points and 6.7 percentage points of the gross differential are, respectively, due to differences in average characteristics and in returns to the characteristics. The gross differential between black and nonblack immigrants is 22.1 percent in favor of nonblack, of which 13.8 percentage points are due to differences in average characteristics and 8.3 are due to differences in returns to characteristics.     

Strangers in a strange land: citizenship and the immigration debate in Lesotho

Lesotho, a small sovereign country located within the borders of the Republic of South Africa, displays a paradox as regards immigration. It lacks the attributes of a typical receiving country, but it has been attractive to immigrants, especially from those countries in sub-Saharan Africa which are not members of the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Lesotho's attraction to immigrants is explained largely by its ability to offer better remuneration for skilled workers than many non-SADC sub-Saharan African countries, and by its strategic location as an easy transit gate into South Africa, widely perceived as the ‘Europe’ of the continent. However, the influx of immigrants into Lesotho has generated a wave of anti-foreigner feelings among sections of the population and heightened the debate about the relevance of foreigners to national development. The paper reiterates the principal conventional arguments against immigration: that it compromises jobs, raises crime rates, intensifies the spread of diseases, undermines the homogeneity of the state and nation and exerts additional strain on the country's already overstretched resources. Demonstrating the limits of these arguments, the paper argues that for Lesotho, grappling with unemployment and manpower shortages, immigration is an asset rather than a liability because it creates jobs, brings in skills that are otherwise in short supply and raises the country's international profile and competitiveness.     

International migration: a case study of South Africa

"South Africa, which has traditionally been a popular destination for international migrants, is currently experiencing a net loss of legal migrants, but an enormous gain of illegal immigrants. This article analyses trends in legal international migration to and from South Africa and provides a demographic profile of legal immigrants and emigrants. The reasons for and results of the influx of illegal immigrants into the country are discussed, and possible policies and strategies to reduce this influx are presented."     

The Western Australian Convicts

British convicts transported to Western Australia between 1850 and 1868 were not as positively selected regarding their human capital as early historical accounts suggest. The heights of the convicts were not statistically different from those of British prisoners who were not transported. While few were skilled, the proportion of construction workers was higher than expected, consistent with selection for the needs of the colonial government's works on infrastructure. Data on inmates of Fremantle Prison allow validation of height measurements and occupational statements in the convict list. Australian-born prisoners were taller than those who came from Britain as free immigrants.     

Rickman revisited: the population growth rates of English counties in the early modern period1

In the 1830s, Rickman, who had supervised the taking of the first four censuses, secured additional returns of baptisms, burials, and marriages from all Anglican incumbents whose registers began early. He made use of the returns to produce new estimates of the population of each county from the sixteenth century onwards. His estimates were published in the 1841 census after his death and have been very widely quoted ever since. This article presents new county estimates, taking advantage of the fact that it is now possible to avoid some of the logical difficulties that Rickman encountered because independent estimates of national population totals are now available.     

Class structure and inequality during the industrial revolution: lessons from England's social tables, 1688–1867

This article measures the size and incomes of six major social classes across the industrial revolution using social tables for England and Wales in 1688, 1759, 1798, 1846, and 1867. Lindert and Williamson famously revised these tables, and this article extends their work in three directions. First, servants are removed from middle‐ and upper‐class households in the tables of King, Massie, and Colquhoun and tallied separately. Second, estimates are made for the same tables of the number and incomes of women and children employed in the various occupations, and, third, incomes are broken down into rents, profits, and employment income. These extensions to the tables allow variables to be computed that can be checked against independent estimates as a validation exercise. The tables are retabulated in a standardized set of six social groups to highlight the changing structure of society across the industrial revolution. Gini coefficients are computed from the social tables to measure inequality. These measures confirm that Britain traversed a ‘Kuznets curve’ in this period. Changes in overall inequality are related to the changing fortunes of the major social classes.     

Measuring the Impact of Socio-Economic Factors on School Efficiency in Australia

This paper examines the productive efficiency of government schools in New South Wales (NSW) in Australia. The study uses a technical inefficiency effects model applied to a unique three-year panel dataset containing 1235 primary and 371 secondary schools in NSW. A stochastic frontier production function and an inefficiency effects function that control for school socioeconomic and environmental factors are estimated. The dataset contains information on various school inputs, school expenditures by major functional area, parental socioeconomic characteristics, student characteristics, and standardized test scores. We examine the degree to which school and non-school educational inputs influence student achievement scores and find that, overall, primary schools are 88.6% and secondary schools 96.4% efficient. The index describing community socio-educational advantage has the most significant influence on students’ achievement scores.     

市场化、南北差距及其根源——基于作物性质的政治经济学考察

中国经济发展的区域差异及其根源，一直备受学界关注。其中，市场化发育的区域差异是解释经济发展差距的重要线索。然而，市场发育区域差异的生成根源却未能得到恰当的处理与阐释。文章试图从作物性质的政治经济学维度，构建"政府管制-作物性质-逃避策略"的逻辑框架，探讨区域经济发展差距背后市场发育的决定机理。文章认为，如果将市场化进程视为政府管制放松的过程，那么管制放松就可以区分为主动管制放松与被动管制放松。由可实施逃避策略所决定的被动管制放松及其所触发的市场化进程往往具有不可逆性。由此，逃避策略选择的区域差异性，将导致区域市场化发育程度的不同进而带来经济增长的差异。基于全国1997-2016年面板数据的实证分析表明：由"无政府主义"的作物种植所表达的管制逃避策略，能够显著促进市场化的发育程度；作物种植差异及其所蕴含的种植文化特性，共同决定了南北市场化差异；源于2013年全面开展的农地确权，进一步强化"南强北弱"的管制逃避，导致南北经济差异不断扩大。本研究有助于为中国区域经济增长差异提供新的洞见，从而为缓解不平衡不充分发展问题并推进中国区域经济的协调发展提供政策依据。     

我国矿产勘查用地纠纷解决途径之完善

我国关于矿产勘查用地的准入规定较为粗疏,可操作性不强,阻碍了矿产勘查人利益的实现。本文借鉴矿业发达国家澳大利亚三个州(西澳、昆士兰、新南威尔士)有关矿产勘查用地纠纷解决的相关制度,为实现矿产勘查用地受偿权利,可分三步走:一是协商;二是行政部门主动调解;三是法院裁决。