Slavery and Information

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Amsterdam; University of Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S002205071300003X
• 发表日期: 2013
• 页码: 79-116
• 关键词: manumission; MARKET; ECONOMICS; freedmen

摘要

This article shows how asymmetric information shaped slavery by determining the likelihood of manumission. A theoretical model explains the need to offer positive incentives to slaves working in occupations characterized by a high degree of asymmetric information. As a result, masters freed ( and, more generally, rewarded) slaves who performed well. The model's implications are then tested against the available evidence: both in Rome and in the Atlantic world, slaves with high asymmetric information tasks had greater chances of manumission. The analysis also sheds light on the master's choices of carrots versus sticks and of labor versus slavery. Whatever work he does beyond what is sufficient to purchase his own maintenance can be squeezed out of him by violence only. Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations(1) [N]or because they are slaves do they less than free men need the lure of hope and happy expectation. Xenophon, The Economist(2)