Collaborative Research: The Differential Impact of Morbid Diseases on the Productivity of Black and White Labor in the Agricultural South

合作研究：疾病对农业南部黑人和白人劳动力生产力的不同影响

• 批准号: 0079179
• 负责人: Philip Coelho
• 金额: $ 1.5万
• 依托单位: Ball State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-07-15 至 2002-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0079179&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Differential; Impact; Morbid

The efficiency and profitability of American slavery have been subject to extensive debates in economic history. In comparing the agricultural outputs of free and slave farms, the modern economic history literature has ignored the disparate effects of diseases on different ethnic groups. Yet there is ample evidence, empirical, scientific, and historical, that populations of different ethnic heritages have different responses to many disease pathogens. In particular, people of tropical West African ancestry tend to have much milder reactions to the "warm weather" diseases that are endemic to tropical West Africa than do most people of European ancestry. These "warm weather" diseases became endemic to the Americas as a result of the African slave trade. The present study examines the role that the differential ethnic reactions to disease played in American economic history. The study models and estimates the impact of a specific disease, hookworm, on human productivity and its disparate effects on peoples of different ancestry. The disparate ethnic effects of hookworm differentially affect human productivity, and consequently raise questions about the existing analysis of the economics of slavery in Antebellum America. The study examines the interactions of the biological environment with the human economy and society, integrating biological science, history, and economic analysis.Specifically, the study estimates the differences in total factor productivity between white and black farms in the American South that can be attributed to the impact of endemic hookworm on white and black agricultural labor. To accomplish this, it employs data on the prevalence and intensity of hookworm in a specific area in the early twentieth-century South. The data on the hookworm burden of whites and blacks, and agricultural inputs and outputs on white and black farms are employed in the productivity estimates. With the data, estimates are made for the impact that hookworm had on differences in productivity between farms that employed labor of African ancestry and farms that employed labor of European ancestry. The study employs estimation techniques that control for other potential confounding variables. The estimates for the impact of hookworm on black and white productivity in the early twentieth-century agricultural South are used to assess the relative efficiency and productivity of slave and free farms in the Antebellum South.

美国奴隶制的效率和盈利能力在经济史上一直受到广泛争论。 在比较自由农场和奴隶农场的农业产出时，现代经济史文献忽略了疾病对不同种族群体的不同影响。 然而，有充足的经验、科学和历史证据表明，不同种族传统的人群对许多疾病病原体有不同的反应。 特别是，与大多数欧洲血统的人相比，热带西非血统的人对热带西非特有的“温暖天气”疾病的反应往往要温和得多。 由于非洲奴隶贸易，这些“温暖天气”疾病成为美洲的地方病。 本研究探讨了种族对疾病的不同反应在美国经济史上所扮演的角色。 该研究模拟并估计了钩虫这一特定疾病对人类生产力的影响及其对不同血统的人们的不同影响。 钩虫对不同种族的影响对人类生产力的影响不同，因此引发了人们对战前美国奴隶制经济学现有分析的质疑。 该研究综合了生物科学、历史和经济分析，探讨了生物环境与人类经济和社会的相互作用。具体而言，该研究估计了美国南部白人和黑人农场之间全要素生产率的差异，该差异可归因于地方性钩虫对白人和黑人农业劳动力的影响。 为了实现这一目标，它采用了二十世纪初南方特定地区钩虫流行率和强度的数据。 生产力估算中采用了白人和黑人的钩虫负担以及白人和黑人农场的农业投入和产出的数据。 根据这些数据，可以估计钩虫对雇用非洲血统劳动力的农场和雇用欧洲血统劳动力的农场之间生产力差异的影响。 该研究采用了控制其他潜在混杂变量的估计技术。 钩虫对二十世纪初南方农业地区黑人和白人生产力影响的估计被用来评估南北战争前南方奴隶农场和自由农场的相对效率和生产力。