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Adverse selection of slaves
I find the expected quality of a slave who was sold was just 61 percent of the quality of his unsold cousin.
Here is much more, thanks to Eric Crampton for the pointer.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on April 1, 2008 at 06:48 AM in History | Permalink
Comments
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have the same problem when they going hiring in Bangladesh, India, etc.
In the villages the recruiters visit the families have realized you put forward the weakest son or daughter.
Posted by: John B. Chilton at Apr 1, 2008 9:31:00 AM
Wow. Provocative abstract! I am a horrible economist. I've never even thought about adverse selection and slave trades before! Can't wait to read the paper.
Posted by: jason voorhees at Apr 1, 2008 9:32:56 AM
To Jason and anyone else who would like to read the paper "The Dynamics of Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves", I hope to get a working paper version up on my website in the near future.
Posted by: Isabelle Sin at Apr 1, 2008 11:46:24 AM
I wonder what the point of this paper is. So what do we learn from it? Probably Sin discusses that in the paper. Looking forward to it.
Posted by: at Apr 1, 2008 1:46:22 PM
One can only wonder about adverse selection of Africans who were captured or sold into slavery by their peers... will have to endow the Larry Summers chair of politically incorrect studies to find out.
Posted by: curmudgeonly troll at Apr 1, 2008 3:24:04 PM
According to Jim MacNeil of PBS's book, "The Story of English," Barbadians claim that the highest quality slaves from the most cooperative tribes were bought by landowners in Barbados (the closest West Indian island to Africa and thus the first landfall for slave ships), while the ornerier slaves were sent on to Jamaica and the U.S., and that's that's why Barbados is so prosperous and well-educated compared to Jamaica.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Apr 1, 2008 5:08:30 PM
How can you know that two slaves are "identical" in expected quality? If the assumption of equal quality is based on family relations (all slaves in one family are of equal quality) then that's just stupid.
Also, are we talking physical quality? A smart slave might be seen as a negative. A really dumb slave, of course, might be discounted too. I have no idea how slave markets rated the intelligence of a slave for sale, let alone what the optimum intelligence level would be. I figure a lot of people would want the biggest, strongest slaves. But does that mean intelligence was completely ignored?
Anyway, even if there are lists of physical attributes of slaves and the prices for which they were sold, that doesn't mean you could say two slaves with equal attributes on paper are equivalent in expected quality. And certainly you can't assume such an equivalence based on two slaves being related to each other.
Posted by: bruce at Apr 1, 2008 10:03:38 PM
Bruce's point is just the tip of the iceburg. Even for economists, the wholesale adoption of the premise that people are property and can/should be evaluated as such is revolting. Make all the PC jokes you want, but you've crossed a line.
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