Slave labor productivity and wine output: Stellenbosch, 1680–1828

Johan Fourie and Jan Greyling

Journal of Wine Economics, 2023, vol. 18, issue 3, 191-204

Abstract: This paper examines wine output and slave labor productivity in the Dutch and British Cape Colony, leveraging annual tax censuses. We document a substantial increase in wine production, but, despite substantial institutional changes over more than a century, we find surprisingly stable median wine yields. Exploiting the farm-level nature of our data, we observe increasing heterogeneity in wine yields, suggesting that some farmers were able to realize productivity increases. We show that efficient slave labor utilization was a critical driver of productivity enhancement, largely unaffected by external factors.

Date: 2023
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