The transatlantic market for British convict labor

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: University of Delaware
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• 发表日期: 2000
• 页码: 94-122
• 关键词: immigration; servants; english; TRADE

摘要

Convicts account for at least one-quarter of British migration to mid-eighteenth-century America. Their transportation to and disposal in America was essentially an experiment in privatizing post-trial criminal justice, A model of this trade is developed that yields testable implicational regarding the relative distributional moments of convict auction prices, the size: of shipper profits, and how convicts were selected for transportation. Quantitative evidence is assembled to test, these implications and to measure the labor value of criminality. The results support the model and are used to explain the political economy of British penal policy,