Risk Sharing, Crew Quality, Labor Shares and Wages in the Nineteenth Century American Whaling Industry

Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman and Teresa D. Hutchins

No 13, NBER Historical Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper examines 36.640 labor contracts signed between whalemen and the agents who organized 1,258 whaling voyages that departed from New Bedford, Massachusetts between January I. 1840 and December 31, 1858 and between January I and December 31, 1866. The contracts contain information on the whaleman's station (occupation) and on his lay (the fraction of output of the voyage that he was entitled to receive upon completion). The paper investigates the benefits associated with this unique contract. examines the occupational and spatial distribution of lays. and compares wages in whaling with those available in the merchant marine and those earned in shore based pursuits. It also attempts to assess the efficiency of this early labor market and to explore the relationship between the labor contract, crew quality. technical change. and productivity.

Date: 1990-05
Note: DAE
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published as T. Weiss, and D. Schaefer, eds., American Economic Development in Historical Perspective, Stanford University Press, 1993

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.nber.org/papers/h0013.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
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:nbr:nberhi:0013

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.nber.org/papers/h0013

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NBER Historical Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc National Bureau of Economic Research, 1050 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02138, U.S.A.. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().