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Preserving Slave Families for Profit: Traders' Incentives and Pricing in the New Orleans Slave Market

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Charles Calomiris
Jonathan Pritchett

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Abstract

We investigate the determinants of slave family discounts, using data from the New Orleans slave market. We find large price discounts for families which cannot be explained by scale effects, childcare costs, legal restrictions, or transport costs. Because family members cared for each other, sellers found it advantageous to keep some families together. Evidence from the manifests of ships carrying slaves to be sold in New Orleans provides direct evidence for our model of selectivity bias in explaining slave family discounts. Children likely to have been shipped with their mothers are 1-2 inches shorter than other children.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 14281.

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Date of creation: Aug 2008
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14281

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
N3 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth
N31 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Income, and Wealth - - - U.S.; Canada: Pre-1913

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  1. Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1978. "The Structure of Slave Prices in New Orleans, 1804 to 1862," UCLA Economics Working Papers 119, UCLA Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Pritchett, Jonathan B. & Freudenberger, Herman, 1992. "A Peculiar Sample: The Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 52(01), pages 109-127, March. [Downloadable!]
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