Adam Smith's Theory of the Persistence of Slavery and its Abolition in Western Europe

Weingast, Barry R.

doi:10.2139/ssrn.2635917

Cited by 18 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…For the former slave-owner, wages would be cheaper than the expense of caring for slaves. Additionally, with more free labour, wages would be low, and production would increase (Weingast, 2016). Williams (1984) proposed three economic factors that contributed to emancipation in the West Indies.…”

Section: Abolitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Slave-owners’ Compensation: The Bahamas Colony

Saunders

2019

Int. j. Bahamian stud.

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This study uses descriptive statistics to provide an overview of the compensation received by former slave-owners who were compensated for the loss of their property in the Bahamas colony, that is, their slaves, after Emancipation. The data used for this study is from the University College London's Legacies of British Slave-ownership Centre. This paper answers four questions: What was the amount of the compensation received by former slave-owners in the Bahamas colony in 1834? What was the distribution of the compensation? What is the 2017 price equivalent of the compensation paid? What would be the investment value of the compensation in 2017 using prevailing interest rates? It is shown that 1,057 awardees received £126,848.70 for 10,087 slaves in 1834. There were six different types of awardees based on the type of ownership. The 2017 equivalent of the total compensation using prices, equates to £11,588,494.36 and in terms of investment value, equates to £342,031,365.63.

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Section: Abolitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Slave-owners’ Compensation: The Bahamas Colony

Saunders

2019

Int. j. Bahamian stud.

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“…Building on such 'tipping points' where one labour regime is replaced by a different one, Rogowski (2013) showed that slavery may transition to a profitable free labour system because of shifts in total factor productivity, labour intensity of production, real wage, slave price, and cost of controlling slaves. Regarding the manumission of slaves, Findlay (1975) derived an inverse relationship between the length of time for a slave to buy his freedom and the interest rate, while Weingast (2020) argued that slavery persists because promises of slaves that they will compensate their masters after freeing them lack credibility. However, the choice between different slavery regimes does not feature in these studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Choice of slavery institutions in Ancient Greece: Athenian chattels and Spartan helots

Tridimas

2023

Journal of Institutional Economics

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The ancient Greek city-states were slave societies, but the institutions of slavery differed across them. The slaves of democratic Athens were foreigners bought as chattels labouring in agriculture, craftsmanship, banking, mining, and domestic services and were often given some limited freedoms and extra pay. On the contrary, the helots, the slaves of oligarchic Sparta, were indigenous of the lands they cultivated for their masters and were treated harshly. The study offers an economic explanation of the different slavery systems. Modelling the slaveholder as a profit maximiser, it attributes the different systems to differences in the probabilities of the slaves running away or revolting, the dependence of output on effort-intensive or care-intensive production technology, which depends on the fertility of the soil and affects whether the slave is treated kindly instead of harshly, and the cost of guarding slaves under different regimes.

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World Ordering

Adler

2019

110

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Adam Smith's Theory of the Persistence of Slavery and its Abolition in Western Europe

Cited by 18 publications

References 23 publications

Slave-owners’ Compensation: The Bahamas Colony

Slave-owners’ Compensation: The Bahamas Colony

Choice of slavery institutions in Ancient Greece: Athenian chattels and Spartan helots

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