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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences
An Academic Parable: Robert W. Fogel's Raft, Heitor Moura Filho
An Academic Parable: Robert W. Fogel's Raft, Heitor Moura Filho
Heitor Moura Filho
The book Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, by Robert W. Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman achieved great fame as a revolutionary interpretation of North American slavery, even though at the time it was criticized in detail by specialists in quantitative economic history. We believe that to quote it as a pioneering quantitative study of slavery has become an academic “meme”, which does not adequately reflect the severe criticism suffered by the book during the years following its publication. This text looks back to the book’s release and the subsequent debates in the ideological and methodological …
Slavery And Information, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
Slavery And Information, Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
Giuseppe Dari-Mattiacci
This article shows how asymmetric information shaped slavery by determining the likelihood of manumission. A theoretical model explains the need to offer positive incentive to slaves working in occupations characterized by a high degree of asymmetric information. As a result, masters freed (and, more generally, rewarded) slaves who performed well. The model’s implications are then tested against the available evidence: both in Rome and in the Atlantic world, slaves with high-asymmetric-information tasks had greater chances of manumission. The analysis also sheds light on the master’s choices of carrots versus sticks and of labor versus slavery.