IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/oup/qjecon/v98y1983i3p479-499..html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860

Author

Listed:
  • Bruce C. Greenwald
  • Robert R. Glasspiegel

Abstract

This paper seeks to cast some light on the importance of adverse selection in competitive markets by examining the market for the sale of slaves in pre-Civil War New Orleans. Estimates of the degree of adverse selection in the New Orleans market are obtained by examining the relative prices of slaves from different regions of origin. These estimates indicate that slaves brought to market may on average have been of 20 percent to 40 percent lower quality than the slave population in general, and that good slaves were perhaps three times less likely to be sold than low quality ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Bruce C. Greenwald & Robert R. Glasspiegel, 1983. "Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 98(3), pages 479-499.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:98:y:1983:i:3:p:479-499.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2307/1886022
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ma, Xingliang & Spielman, David J. & Nazli, Hina & Zambrano, Patricia & Zaidi, Fatima & Kouser, Shahzad, 2014. "Information efficiency in a lemons market: Evidence from Bt cotton seed market in Pakistan," 2014 Annual Meeting, July 27-29, 2014, Minneapolis, Minnesota 175278, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    2. H. Naci Mocan, 2001. "Can Consumers Detect Lemons? Information Asymmetry in the Market for Child Care," NBER Working Papers 8291, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Pritchett, Jonathan & Freudenberger, Herman, 2016. "A Peculiar Sample: A Reply to Steckel and Ziebarth," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 139-162, March.
    4. Chenny, Shirley & St-Amour, Pascal & Vencatachellum, Desire, 2003. "Slave prices from succession and bankruptcy sales in Mauritius, 1825-1827," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 419-442, October.
    5. Jens MohrenweiserBy & Gabriele Wydra-Somaggio & Thomas Zwick, 2020. "Information advantages of training employers despite credible training certificates," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 651-671.
    6. Naci Mocan, 2007. "Can consumers detect lemons? An empirical analysis of information asymmetry in the market for child care," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 20(4), pages 743-780, October.
    7. Robert Wagner & Thomas Zwick, 2012. "How Acid are Lemons? Adverse Selection and Signalling for Skilled Labour Market Entrants," Economics of Education Working Paper Series 0071, University of Zurich, Department of Business Administration (IBW), revised Feb 2012.
    8. Mohrenweiser, Jens & Wydra-Sommaggio, Gaby & Zwick, Thomas, 2015. "Work-related ability as source of information advantages of training employers," ZEW Discussion Papers 15-057, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    9. Hoffmann, Vivian & Mutiga, Samuel & Harvey, Jagger & Nelson, Rebecca & Milgroom, Michael, 2013. "Asymmetric Information and Food Safety: Maize in Kenya," 2013 Annual Meeting, August 4-6, 2013, Washington, D.C. 151288, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    10. Anagol, Santosh, 2017. "Adverse selection in asset markets: Theory and evidence from the Indian market for cows," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 58-72.
    11. Mohrenweiser, Jens & Wydra-Sommaggio, Gaby & Zwick, Thomas, 2014. "Adverse Selection and Information Advantages of Training Firms," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100525, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    12. Gagliardi, Francesca, 2008. "Institutions and economic change: A critical survey of the new institutional approaches and empirical evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 416-443, February.
    13. Choo, Eugene & Eid, Jean, 2008. "Interregional Price Difference in the New Orleans Auctions Market for Slaves," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 486-509.
    14. Ewing, Bradley T. & Payne, James E. & Thornton, Mark & Yanochik, Mark A., 2002. "Price Transmission in the Antebellum Slave Markets: A Time Series Analysis," The Review of Regional Studies, Southern Regional Science Association, vol. 32(2), pages 275-292, Summer/Fa.
    15. Brian Chezum & Bradley S. Wimmer, 2000. "Evidence of Adverse Selection from Thoroughbred Wagering," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 66(3), pages 700-714, January.
    16. Conor Lennon, 2016. "Slave Escape, Prices, and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 669-695.
    17. Arif Sultan, 2010. "Lemons and certified pre-owned cars in the used car market," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(1), pages 45-50, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:oup:qjecon:v:98:y:1983:i:3:p:479-499.. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Oxford University Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://academic.oup.com/qje .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.