Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T05:33:35.287Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sequential Sales as a Test of Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2013

Jonathan Pritchett  and
Mallorie Smith
Jonathan Pritchett
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. E-mail: [email protected].
Mallorie Smith
Affiliation:
Research Assistant, Department of Economics, Tulane University, New Orleans, Louisiana 70118. E-mail: [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When imported slaves were first sold in New Orleans, buyers were unaware of the slaves’ unobservable characteristics. In time, the new owners learned more about their slaves and may have resold the “lemons.” Previous research suggests that buyers anticipated such adverse selection and reduced their bids for these slaves. Consequently, we should observe lower prices for resold slaves. We test this proposition by linking the sequential sales records of 568 slaves. Through a comparison of initial and resale prices, we find little evidence to support the hypothesis that adverse selection lowered the price of resold slaves.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 73 , Issue 2 , June 2013 , pp. 477 - 497
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The authors acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation award SMA-1004569 entitled, “Research Experience for Undergraduates.” Jessica Hayes and the staff of the Notarial Archives Division Research Center provided able research assistance. We benefit from the helpful comments and suggestions of James Alm, Alan Barreca, Joe Ferrie, Paul Rhode, Judy Schafer, and two anonymous referees. An earlier version of this article was presented at the meetings of the Cliometrics Society, January 7, 2011.

References

REFERENCES

Akerlof, George A. “The Market for ‘Lemons’: Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 84, no. 3 (1970): 488–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alchian, Armen A., and Allen, William R.. Exchange and Production: Theory in Use. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 1969.Google Scholar
Borcherding, Thomas, and Silberberg, Eugene. “Shipping the Good Apple Out: The Alchian and Allen Theorem Reconsidered.” Journal of Political Economy 86, no. 1 (1978): 131–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Choo, Eugene, and Eid, Jean. “Interregional Price Difference in the New Orleans Auctions Market for Slaves.” Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 26, no. 4 (2008): 486–509.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conrad, Alfred, and Meyer, John. “The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South.” Journal of Political Economy 66, no. 2 (1958): 95–130.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Craig, Lee, and Hammond, Robert. “The Market for Slaves and Lemons: A (Partial) Solution to the Antebellum Puzzle.” North Carolina State University Economics Working Paper, Raleigh, NC, March 2011.Google Scholar
Dionne, Georges, St-Amour, Pascal, and Vencatachellum, Désiré. “Asymmetric Information and Adverse Selection in Mauritian Slave Auctions.” Review of Economic Studies 76, no. 4 (2009): 1269–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Robert Jr. “The Economics of American Negro Slavery, 1830–1860.” In NBER Aspects of Labor Economics, edited by Universities-National Bureau, , 185–243. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1962.Google Scholar
Fede, Andrew. “Legal Protection for Slave Buyers in the U.S. South: A Caveat Concerning Caveat Emptor.” The American Journal of Legal History 31, no. 4 (1987): 322–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fogel, Robert W. Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery. New York: Norton, 1989.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., and Engerman, Stanley. Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974.Google Scholar
Fogel, Robert W., and Engerman, Stanley. “The New Orleans Slave Sale Sample, 1804–1862 [Computer File].” ICPSR Study No. 7423. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 1976.Google Scholar
Freudenberger, Herman, and Pritchett, Jonathan. “The Domestic United States Slave Trade: New Evidence.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 21, no. 3 (1991): 447–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenwald, Bruce C., and Glasspiegel, Robert R.. “Adverse Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 98, no. 3 (1983): 479–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gudmestad, Robert H. A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Johnson, Justin P., and Waldman, Michael. “Leasing, Lemons, and Buybacks.” Rand Journal of Economics 34, no. 2 (2003): 247–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Walter. “The Slave Trader, the White Slave, and the Politics of Racial Determination in the 1850s.” The Journal of American History 87, no. 1 (2000): 13–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Komlos, John, and Alecke, Bjorn. “The Economics of Antebellum Slave Heights Reconsidered.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 26, no. 3 (1996): 437–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kotlikoff, Laurence J. “The Structure of Slave Prices in New Orleans, 1804 to 1862.” Economic Inquiry 17, no. 4 (1979): 496–517.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levendis, John. “The Movement of Quality Adjusted Slave Prices and Quantities.” Southwestern Economic Review 34, no. 1 (2007): 161–77.Google Scholar
Levendis, John. “How Efficient Were the New Orleans Slave Auctions? A Structural Econometric Approach.” Southwestern Economic Review 36, no. 1 (2009): 95–104.Google Scholar
Louisiana. Acts, 1st Leg., New Orleans, 1806.Google Scholar
Louisiana. Civil Code of the State of Louisiana: Preceded by the Treaty of Cession with France, the Constitution of the United States of America and of the State. New Orleans: Impr. De E. Duverger, 1825.Google Scholar
Louisiana. Acts, 9th Leg., 1 sess., New Orleans, 1829.Google Scholar
New Orleans Daily Picayune, 27 May 1838.Google Scholar
New Orleans Notarial Archives (NONA). New Orleans, LA.Google Scholar
Pritchett, Jonathan B. “The Interregional Slave Trade and the Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History 28, no. 1 (1997): 57–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchett, Jonathan B., and Chamberlain, Richard. “Selection in the Market for Slaves: New Orleans, 1830–1860.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 108, no. 2 (1993): 461–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchett, Jonathan B., and Freudenberger, Herman. “A Peculiar Sample: The Selection of Slaves for the New Orleans Market.” The Journal of Economic History 52, no. 1 (1992): 109–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pritchett, Jonathan B., and Smith, Mallorie. “An Economic Analysis of Slave Warranties: The 1830 New Orleans Slave Market.” Working Paper, Tulane University, Department of Economics, November 2011.Google Scholar
Pritchett, Jonathan B., and Tunalı, Insan. “Strangers’ Disease: Determinants of Yellow Fever Mortality During the New Orleans Epidemic of 1853.” Explorations in Economic History 32, no. 4 (1995): 517–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ransom, Roger, and Sutch, Richard. “Capitalists Without Capital: The Burden of Slavery and the Impact of Emancipation.” Agricultural History 62, no. 3 (1988): 133–60.Google Scholar
Schafer, Judith Kelleher. “‘Guaranteed Against the Vices and Maladies Prescribed by Law’: Consumer Protection, the Law of Slave Sales, and the Supreme Court in Antebellum Louisiana.” The American Journal of Legal History 31, no. 4 (1987): 306–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tadman, Michael. Speculators and Slaves: Masters, Trades, and Slaves in the Old South. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Tadman, Michael. “The Reputation of the Slave Trader in Southern History and the Social Memory of the South.” American Nineteenth Century History 8, no. 3 (2007): 247–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Pritchett supplementary material

Pritchett supplementary material

Download Pritchett supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 107.3 KB