Productivity Growth and the Regional Dynamics of Antebellum Southern Development

Abstract

Between 1800 and 1860, the United States became the preeminent world supplier of cotton as output increased sixty-fold. Technological changes, including the introduction of improved cotton varieties, contributed significantly to this growth. Measured output per worker in the cotton sector rose four-fold and large regional differences emerged. By 1840, output per worker in the New South was twice that in the Old South. The economy-wide increase is explained, in equal measure, by growth in output per worker at fixed locations and by the reallocation of labor across regions. These results offer a new view on the dynamics of economic development in antebellum America.

Credit Market Discipline and Capitalist Slavery in Antebellum South Carolina

“…: 133-42). Baptist's story isn't particularly consistent with the timing and distribution of productivity growth in Olmstead and Rhode's data (Clegg 2015;Olmstead and Rhode 2016) and I have found no evidence that planters treated their slaves more harshly in the 1840s. 43 However, if they did it would not come as 39.…”

A Theory of Capitalist Slavery

“…But such techniques were no more successful in the North, where the “wasteful” use of abundant land was just as prevalent—indeed, it may be considered a rational response to relative factor prices. Olmstead and Rhode () attribute much of their findings of slave labor productivity growth to what they call “bio‐technological innovation” in cotton—the experimental development of higher‐yield and easier‐to‐pick strains. Based on their own detailed estimates of both sectors, they conclude these new cotton hybrids had a greater effect on slave labor productivity than the effect of the mechanical wheat harvester on the productivity of Northern farm labor…”

“…This figure is based on Olmstead and Rhode’s analysis of annual cotton output per slave (from census and industry data), which they find rose at an annual rate of 2.1–2.4 percent from 1800 to 1860 (Olmstead and Rhode ). Olmstead and Rhode corroborate that this reflected labor productivity growth using micro data from daily cotton picking books.…”

“…They also suggest that the increase of measured output following the Western movement of slavery may have been due more to these new varieties being initially adapted to the Western climate in which they were developed than the fertility of land per se (Olmstead and Rhode , p. 26–27). Edward Baptist has contested Olmstead and Rhode’s interpretation of their evidence, arguing that torture (specifically a competitive and ratcheting system of whipping those who fail to meet productivity targets) was the “ultimate cause” of the productivity growth identified by Olmstead and Rhode.…”

The Economics of African American Slavery: The Cliometrics Debate

“…Since the labor requirement for hand picking was the primary constraint on productivity per slave, the taller, more prolific varieties markedly increased the number of pounds of cotton that a worker could pick in a day. When superior varieties were perfected they spread east and west, north and south, thus increasing productivity throughout the South [Olmstead and Rhode 2008a, 2008b, 2011].…”