Turnover cost and the distribution of slave labor in Anglo-America

• 成果类型: Article; Proceedings Paper
• 署名作者: Hanes, C
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC HISTORY
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-0507
• DOI: 10.1017/S0022050700016466
• 发表日期: 1996
• 页码: 307-329
• 关键词: contract labor; MARKET; 19th-century; south; sugar

摘要

In the eighteenth-century British Empire and the antebellum South, slaves were concentrated in domestic service and rural enterprises like agriculture and iron-works. I argue that employers in these sectors chose to employ slaves rather than free labor because they faced especially high turnover costs-that is, costs of searching for a worker and going without labor when a free worker quit or was fired. In the absence of slavery, these sectors were marked by other institutions designed to deal with turnover costs: indentured servitude, employment agencies, and deferred compensation.