Slavery and development in nineteenth century Brazil

Nuno Palma, Andrea Papadia, Thales Pereira and Leonardo Weller

No 15495, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This article brings new evidence on the legacy of slavery in nineteenth-century Brazil to bear on the history of economic development. Its conclusions contribute to the debate raised by the New History of Capitalism (NHC) about the critical role played by slavery in the industrialization of the United States. We argue that the NHC lacks a comparative perspective. Brazil imported more slaves than any other country in the world and slavery lasted longer and was more widespread than in the U.S. South. Rather than promoting economic growth and development, the evidence shows that slavery held back industrialization in Brazil. We also discuss the role of slavery on agricultural productivity and show that, as in the U.S., the use of violence does not explain increases in the productivity of cotton plantations

Keywords: Slavery; Comparative history; New history of capitalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J47 N56 N66 O54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-gro, nep-his and nep-pke
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15495 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
Working Paper: Slavery and development in nineteenth century Brazil (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15495

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15495
orders@cepr.org

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by (repec@cepr.org).