 Dispersion and distortions in the trans-Atlantic slave tradeJohn Dalton () and Tin Cheuk Leung () Journal of International Economics, 2015, vol. 96, issue 2, 412-425 Abstract: Market distortions can lead to resource misallocation, which can further lead to inefficiency. Throughout the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, qualitative evidence of various sources of distortion abounds. No study, however, has quantified the inefficiency in the slave trade due to these distortions. We use a structural approach to identify the dispersion of distortions in the slave trade from wedges in first order conditions. We then calculate the TFP gains had the dispersion of distortions disappeared. Two main results emerge. First, dispersion of distortions had the smallest damage to TFP in Great Britain, followed by Portugal, and then France. Second, dispersion of distortions in the product market had a bigger impact on TFP than that of the capital and labor markets. Keywords: Slave trades; Market distortions; Output dispersion; Productivity (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:inecon:v:96:y:2015:i:2:p:412-425 DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2015.03.002 Access Statistics for this article Journal of International Economics is currently edited by Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier and RodrÃguez-Clare, Andrés More articles in Journal of International Economics from Elsevier |
Is your work missing from RePEc? Here is how to contribute.
Questions or problems? Check the EconPapers FAQ or send mail to .
EconPapers is hosted by the
School of Business at Örebro University.