Abstract
Trout J. Rader III is an economist with an impressive range. He is unique among mathematical economists in terms of his interests in the Protestant ethic1 and in the economics of feudalism and slavery, 2 and unique among development economists in terms of his reliance on rigorous economic theory and in the importance he gives to purely technical issues such as, for example, the differentiability of solutions to general optimization problems and to the properties of preference relations.3 As such, his work can be looked on and admired from many angles. In this essay, I follow Trout Rader the development economist, and taking Chapter 2 of his book on The Economics of Feudalism as an example and guide, propose a model of the Atlantic slave trade. The methodology behind my work can be stated best in Rader’s own words.
Preliminary versions of this paper were presented at the Fall 1990 Mid-West International Economics Meetings; at the Second Chittagong Conference on Mathematical Economics and its Relevance for Development; at the Trade and Development Workshops at Rochester and Yale; and at the Economic Theory Workshops at Georgetown and Notre Dame. I am grateful to all the participants for their encouragement and interest but I must single out Steve Blough and Jota Ishikawa for pointing out an incompleteness of the analysis in the first draft; to Sidney Mintz for directing me to the work of R. Sheridan; to Stan Engerman for his detailed comments and for references, especially to the Eltis-Jennings paper; to John Chipman, Tatsuo Hatta, Ron Jones, Amartya Sen and T. N. Srinivasan for their questions, some of which still remain in this version; and to Jeff Fischer, Lou Maccini, John Pomery and Hugh Rose for discussion and help at various points.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Bergstrom, T. C. (1971): “On the existence and optimality of competitive equilibrium for a slave economy,” Review of Economic Studies 38, 23–36.
Bergstrom): “T. C., R. Parks and T. Rader (1976): “Preferences which have open graphs,” Journal of Mathematical Economics 3, 265–268.
Bliss, C. J. and N. H. Stern (1978): “Productivity, wages and nutrition,” Parts 1 and 2, Journal of Development Economics 5, 331–398.
Caves, R. E. and R. W. Jones (1981): World Trade and Payments, Little Brown and Company, New York.
Chaudhuri, T. Datta and M. Ali Khan (1984): “Sector-specific capital, interconnectedness in production, and welfare,” Canadian Journal of Economics 17, 489–507.
Chaudhuri, T. Datta and M. Ali Khan (1986): “Commercial policy in an asymmetric world economy,” Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie 46, 143–161.
Chaudhuri, T. Datta, M, Ali Khan and M. Tang (1987): “Technical progress and structural change,” Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 143, 310–323.
Conrad, A. H. and J. R. Meyer (1958): “The economics of slavery in the antebellum South,” Journal of Political Economy 66, 95–130.
Conrad, A. H. and J. R. Meyer (1964): The Economics of Slavery. Aldine Publishing Co., Chicago.
Curtin, P. D. (1969): The Atlantic Slave Trade. The University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin.
Curtin, P. D. (1971a): “ The Atlantic slave trade 1600–1800,” in J. F. A. Ajayi and M. Crowder (eds.) History of West Africa, Volume 1. Columbia University Press, New York
Curtin, P. D. (1971b): “The slave trade and the Atlantic basin: intercontinental perspectives,” in N. I. Huggins, M. Kilson and D. M. Fox (eds.): Key Issues in the Afro-American Experience. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York.
Curtin, P.D. (1975): Economic Change in Precolonial Africa. The University of Wisconsin Press, Wisconsin.
Curtin, P. D. (1990): The Rise and Fall of the Plantation Complex. Cambridge University Press, New York.
David, P. A. and P. Temin (1974): “Slavery: the progressive institution,” Journal of Economic History 34, 739–783.
Darity, W. A. (1982): “A general equilibrium model of the 18th century Atlantic slave trade,” Research In Economic History 7, 287–326.
Debreu, G. (1976): “Regular differentiable economies,” American Economic Review 66, 280–287.
Debreu, G. (1959): Theory of Value. John Wiley and Sons, New Haven.
Eltis, D. and L. C. Jennings (1988): “Trade between Western Africa and the Atlantic world in the pre-colonial era,” American History Review 93, 936–959.
Engerman, S. L. and E. D. Genovese (eds.) (1975): Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Ferguson, C. E. (1968): “Inferior factors and the theories of production and input demand,” Economica 138, 140–150.
Findlay, R. (1975): “Slavery, incentives and manumission,” Journal of Political Economy 83, 923–933.
Findlay, R. (1978): “An “Austrian” model of international trade and interest rate equalization,” Journal of Political Economy 86, 989–1007.
Findlay, R. (1979): “Economic development and the theory of international trade,” American Economic Review 69, 186–190.
Findlay, R. (1984): “Growth and development in trade models,” in P. B. Kenen and R. W. Jones (eds.) Handbook of International Economics, Volume 1. North Holland, Amsterdam.
Findlay, R. (1989): “The “triangular trade” and the Atlantic economy of the eighteenth century,” Frank Graham Lecture, Discussion Paper No. 424, Columbia University.
Gelfand, I. M. and S. V. Fomin (1963): Calculus of Variations. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs.
Gemery, H. A. and J. S. Hogendorn (1974): “The Atlantic slave trade: a tentative economic model,” Journal of African History 15, 223–246.
Gemery, H. A. and J. S. Hogendorn (1978): “Technological change, slavery and the slave trade,” in C. Dewey and A. G. Hopkins (eds.), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India. The Athlone Press, London.
Heckscher, E. (1926): “A plea for theory in economic history,” in F. C. Lane and J. C. Riemersma (eds.), Enterprise and Secular Change. Richard Irwin, Illinois (1953).
Hopkins, A. G. (1978): “Imperial connections,” in C. Dewey and A. G. Hopkins (eds.), The Imperial Impact: Studies in the Economic History of Africa and India. The Athlone Press, London.
Inikori, J. E. (1977): “The import of firearms into West Africa 1750–1807: a quantitative analysis”, Journal of African History 18, 339–368.
Jones, R. W. (1971): “A three factor model in theory, trade and history,” in J. N. Bhagwati et al., Trade, Balance of Payments and Growth. North Holland, Amsterdam.
Jones, R. W. and F. Dei (1983): “International trade and foreign investment: a simple model in theory,” Economic Enquiry 21, 449–464.
Kemp, M. C. and M. Ohyama (1978): “On the sharing of trade gains by resource- poor and resource-rich countries,” Journal of International Economics 10, 245–256.
Khan, M. Ali (1984): “International trade and foreign investment: a model with asymmetric production,” Pakistan Development Review 23, 510–530.
Khan, M. Ali (1989a): “Lionel McKenzie on the existence of competitive equilibrium,” Johns Hopkins Working Paper. Forthcoming in General Equilibrium and Growth: The Legacy of Lionel McKenzie. Academic Press, New York.
Khan, M. Ali (1989b): “In praise of development economics,” Pakistan Development Review 28, 337–378.
Koopmans, T.C. (1967): “Objectives, constraints and outcomes in optimal growth models,” Econometrica 35, 1–15.
Leibenstein, H. (1957): Economic Backwardness and Economic Growth. John Wiley, New York.
LeVeen, E. P. (1975): “A quantitative analysis of British suppression policies on the volume of the nineteenth century Atlantic slave trade,” in S. L. Engerman and E. D. Genovese (eds.), 1975, Race and Slavery in the Western Hemisphere. Princeton University Press, Princeton.
Lovejoy, P. E. and J. S. Hogendorn (1979): “Slave marketing in West Africa,” in H. A. Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn (eds.) The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Slave Trade. Academic Press, New York.
Lucas, R. J. (1967): “Optimal investment policy and the flexible accelerator,” International Economic Review 8, 78–85.
Mas-Colell, A. (1985): The Theory of General Economic Equilibrium: A Differential Approach. Cambridge University Press, New York.
Minchinton, W. E. (1979): “The triangular trade revisited,” in H. A. Gemery and J. S. Hogendorn (eds.) The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Slave Trade. Academic Press, New York.
Mintz, S. W. (1959): “Plantation systems of the new world,” Social Science Monograph No. VII, Pan American Union, Washington D.C.
Mintz, S. W. (1974): Caribbean Transformations. Columbia University Press, New York.
Mintz, S. W. (1985): Sweetness and Power. Penguin Books, New York.
Mirrlees, J. A. (1975): “A pure theory of underdeveloped economies,” in L. G. Reynolds (ed.) Agriculture in Development Theory. Yale University Press, New Haven.
Myrdal, G. (1968): Asian Drama, Volume III. Allen Lane, Middlesex.
Palmer, C. A. (1981): Human Cargoes. University of Illinois Press, Urbana.
Rader, T. (1963): “Existence of a utility function to represent preferences,” Review of Economic Studies 30, 299–232.
Rader, T. (1964): “Edgeworth exchange and general economic equilibrium,” Yale Economic Essays 4, 133–180.
Rader, T. (1968a): “Normally factor inputs are never gross substitutes,” Journal of Political Economy 76, 38–43.
Rader, T. (1968b): “International trade and development in a small country,” in J. Quirk and R. M. Saposnik (eds.) Papers in Quantitative Economics, Volume 1. The University Press of Kansas, Lawrence.
Rader, T. (1971a): The Economics of Feudalism. Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, New York.
Rader, T. (1971b): “International trade and development in a small country, II,” in A. M. Zarley (ed.) Papers in Quantitative Economics, Volume 2. The University Press of Kansas, Lawrence.
Rader, T. (1972): “General equilibrium theory with complementary factors,” Journal of Economic Theory 4, 372–380.
Rader, T. (1973a): “Nice demand functions,” Econometrica 30, 913–926.
Rader, T. (1973b): “Absolutely constrained maximizers,” Journal of Optimization Theory and Applications 12, 107–128.
Rader, T. (1978): “On factor price equalization,” Journal of Mathematical Economics 5, 71–82.
Rader, T. (1982): “Growth in a many (non-Protestant ethic) consumer, many good economy leads to immiserization of all but one consumer,”” Washington University, mimeo.
Samuelson, P. A. (1971): “Ohlin was right,” Swedish Journal of Economics 73, 365–384.
Samuelson, P. A. (1975): “Trade pattern reversals in time-phased Ricardian systems and intertemporal efficiency,” Journal of International Economics 5, 309–363.
Sheridan, R. B. (1958): “The commercial and financial organization of the British 1slave trade,” 1750–1807, Economic History Review 11, 249–263.
Sheridan, R. B. (1974): Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies 1623–1775. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Stiglitz, J. E. (1976): “The efficiency wage hypothesis, surplus labor and the distribution of income in LDCs,” Oxford Economic Papers 28.
Sutch, R. (1975): “The treatment received by American slaves: a critical review of the evidence” presented in Time on the Cross. Explorations in Economic History 12, 335–439.
Temin, P. (1971): “General equilibrium models in economic history,” Journal of Economic History 31, 58–75.
Tomich, D. W. (1990): Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Toulmin, S. (1977): “From form to function: philosophy and history of science in the 1950s and now,” Daedalus 143–162.
Weber, S. (1985): Institution and Interpretation. University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.
White, H. (1978): Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore.
Wolf, E. R. and S. W. Mintz (1957): “Haciendas and plantations in Middle America and the Antilles,” Institute of Social and Economic Research, 6. 380–412.
Woodward, C. Vann (1989): The Future of the Past. Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Young, L. (1986): “A note on ‘sector-specific capital, interconnectedness in production, and welfare’ ”, Canadian Journal of Economics 19, 678–684.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1992 Springer-Verlag Berlin · Heidelberg
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khan, M.A. (1992). The Economics of the Atlantic Slave Trade. In: Neuefeind, W., Riezman, R.G. (eds) Economic Theory and International Trade. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77671-7_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-77671-7_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-642-77673-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-642-77671-7
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive