Slavery and Beyond
Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM (CST)
- Chair: Nathan Nunn, Harvard University
Slavery and the British Industrial Revolution
Abstract
Did overseas slave-holding by Britons accelerate the Industrial Revolution? We provide theory and evidence on the contribution of slave wealth to Britain’s growth prior to 1835. We compare areas of Britain with high and low exposure to the colonial plantation economy, using granular data on wealth from compensation records. Before the major expansion of slave holding from the 1640s onwards, both types of area exhibited similar levels of economic activity. However, by the 1830s, slavery wealth is strongly correlated with economic development – slave-holding areas are less agricultural, closer to cotton mills, and have higher property wealth. We rationalize these findings using a dynamic spatial model, where slavery investment raises the return to capital accumulation, expanding production in capital-intensive sectors. To establish causality, we use arguably exogenous variation in slave mortality on the passage from Africa to the Indies, driven by weather shocks. We show that weather shocks influenced the continued involvement of ancestors in the slave trade; weather-induced slave mortality of slave-trading ancestors in each area is strongly predictive of slaveholding in 1833. Quantifying our model using the observed data, we find that Britain would have been substantially poorer and more agricultural in the absence of overseas slave wealth. Overall, our findings are consistent with the view that slavery wealth accelerated Britain’s industrial revolution.After The Burning: The Economic Effects of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre
Abstract
The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre resulted in the looting, burning, and leveling of 35 square blocks of a once-thriving Black neighborhood. Not only did this lead to severe economic loss, but the massacre also sent a warning to Black individuals across the country that similar events were possible in their communities. We examine the economic consequences of the massacre for Black populations in Tulsa and across the United States. We find that for the Black population of Tulsa, in the two decades that followed, the massacre led to declines in home ownership and occupational status. Outside of Tulsa, we find that the massacre also reduced home ownership. These effects were strongest in communities that were more exposed to newspaper coverage of the massacre or communities that, like Tulsa, had high levels of racial segregation. Examining effects after 1940, we find that the direct negative effects of the massacre on the home ownership of Black Tulsans, as well as the spillover effects working through newspaper coverage, persist and actually widen in the second half of the 20th Century.Tordesillas, Slavery and the Origins of Brazilian Inequality
Abstract
This article documents the long-term effect of slavery on inequality atthe receiving end of the spectrum. We focus on Brazil, the largest importer of African slaves and the last country to abolish this institution in the Western Hemisphere, in 1888. To deal with the endogeneity of slavery placement, we use a spatial Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), exploiting the colonial boundaries between the Portuguese and Spanish empires within Brazil. We find that the number of slaves in 1872 is discontinuously higher on the Portuguese side of the border, consistent with
this power’s comparative advantage in transatlantic slavery. We then show
how this differential slave rate led to higher modern income inequality of
0.103 points (of the Gini coefficient), approximately 20% of average income
inequality in the country. To further investigate the mechanisms at play,
we use the division of the former Portuguese colony into Donatary Captaincies as well as the Dutch colonization experience. Aside from the effect on income inequality, we find that more slave intensive areas have higher income and educational racial imbalances, and lower state capacity today.
The End of Slavery in Brazil: Escape and Resistance on the Road to Freedom
Abstract
A longstanding debate opposes two mechanisms by which labor coercion persists or changes to free labor: a labor demand effect, by which the elite coerces labor when supply is scarce, and an outside option effect, by which labor scarcity and better outside options for the workers undermine coercive arrangements. Using a novel data set of roll-call votes on 1884-1888 emancipation bills in the Brazilian legislature, we find that both mechanisms played a role in building the coalition that eventually abolished slaveryJEL Classifications
- N0 - General
- O0 - General