Kotlikoff (1992) uses the Fogel and Engerman (1976) data set, which consists of a sample of slave prices and characteristics drawn from auction records for New Orleans during the period 1804 to 1862. The data show that almost the same percentage of slaves sold were reported as "sick" in both regions, 4% in New Orleans and 3.6% in non-New Orleans. However, women sold with a ten-year-old child earned a significantly higher premium in New Orleans.12 Both men and women with domestic skills (HWM and HWF) earned significantly positive premiums compared to unskilled male adults in New Orleans. .
Male slaves with occupations other than domestic or artisan earned significantly higher premiums in Ne New Orleans than in New Orleans. All age groups of artisan slaves earned a substantial premium over the average unskilled adult male slave in New Orleans, and all but the oldest artisan age group earned a premium in non-New Orleans. Craftsmen aged 40–60 in non-New Orleans earned a negative premium relative to unskilled male adults.15 Slaves with skills, trades, domestic skills, or other occupations typically earned premiums relative to the average unskilled adult. male slave in both markets.
Thus, tradesmen are all men in non-New Orleans, and except for one woman, tradesmen were all men in New Orleans. Women over 25 received a significant negative premium in New Orleans, and women aged nine and under received a significant negative premium in non-New Orleans. The pattern of age premiums for tradesmen in the results using the Fogel and Engerman data was similar to that for Non New Orleans in the earlier period, where the 40 to 60 age group did not earn a significant premium.
In New Orleans during the earlier period, artisans of all ages earned a premium over the average unskilled adult male.
Market Shocks: Embargo and Legislation
Total Effect of Shocks
Results reported in Table 4, which measure the overall effect of a shock on the value of a slave21, indicate that both women aged 10 to 25 and young women in New Orleans earned a significant premium as a result of legislation, whereas only young women in Not New Orleans achieved a significantly positive premium. Women of all ages realized a significant negative premium in Non New Orleans as a result of the embargo. The overall effect of the embargo resulted in significantly lower values for light-skinned male and female slaves in non-New Orleans, but a significant positive premium for light-skinned women in New Orleans.
Although light-skinned men and women in both regions had positive aggregate premiums due to the legislation, only light-skinned men in New Orleans did. Total premiums were significant for women in states outside of New Orleans and for men in New Orleans. Magnitudes were greater in Ne New Orleans for both men and women, but only significantly for women.
The embargo had no significant effect on the value of domestically skilled slaves in Ion-New Orleans, despite the large imprecisely measured values. Both males and females realized significantly negative premiums in New Orleans as a result of the embargo. The effect on non-New Orleans males was significantly greater than on New Orleans males.
The impact of the embargo was large but insignificant for both men and women with other occupations in both markets. Although statistically insignificant, in New Orleans the women lost value while the men gained, and in Non New Orleans the opposite was true. Only two of the eight significantly different total impacts were due to legislation prohibiting slave importation.
This was true for women with domestic skills and men with other occupations, who earned a significantly higher premium in the non-New Orleans state as a result of the legislation. The other six significantly different impacts were due to embargo effects for countries other than New Orleans, reflecting the different importance of export products to the two markets. In all six cases, the embargo caused a significantly greater negative impact on the market outside of New Orleans.
Post Embargo Effects of Legislation: Post 1814
The average value of an uneducated adult male slave increased between the pre-1808 period and the post-1814 period, by $724 in New Orleans and $596 in non-New Orleans. We argue that this increase in the average value can be attributed to legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves. The values of slaves, excluding older women in Non-New Orleans, increase by a greater amount than those of the average uneducated adult male.
In particular, the average value of an adolescent female slave increases by $1,550 in New Orleans and $2,550 in New Orleans when comparing the period after 1815 to the period before 1808. The only two types of characteristics that differ between the two markets are women with domestic skills and men with other professions, both of which are significantly more in Ne New Orleans. In the post-1814 period, the markets are quite similar, suggesting that the shock of the slave ban made the two markets more similar than before 1808.
Conclusion
The embargo resulted in major negative shocks for Non New Orleans, especially for women of childbearing age. This relatively greater decline in value for women in non-New Orleans reflects the differential value placed on childbearing in non-New Orleans relative to New Orleans. Results for post-embargo slave values indicate that, except for older women in Non New Orleans, values for all characteristics and genders realized a greater increase than an unskilled adult male slave.
Females, ages 15 to 25, realized greater gains than older females, but adolescent females, ages 10 to 14, realized significant increases in value relative to unskilled adult males, as did males and females with other characteristics.23 In Nie New Orleans realized women with domestic skills and men with other occupations both significantly larger. 22 Numbers of slaves from the old South increased in both New Orleans and Non New Orleans after 1807, but significantly more for New Orleans: the proportion of total sales from the old South averaged 2 - 3% in Non New Orleans compared to 4 - 5% in New Orleans. 23 Although Fogel and Engerman (1974) indicate that only a small portion of the value of female slaves was due to reproductive capacity, we find that the ban on slave importation increased that portion.
Databases for the Study of Louisiana History and Genealogy. 1981) "American Trade Restrictions During the War of 1812" Journal of American History. 2001) "The Welfare Cost of Autarky: Evidence from the Jeffersonian Trade Embargo National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 8692. Entries for the total effect, or the total change in values, for New Orleans and Non-New Orleans are the sums of regression coefficients from Table 3, with F-statistics, F(1, 654), reported in parentheses.Entries for 1808 to 1814 New Orleans and Non-New Orleans values are the sum of regression coefficients for the characteristic before 1808 from Table 3, plus the total effect due to.
Entries for entry 1814 Values for New Orleans and non-New Orleans are the sum of the regression coefficients for the pre-1808 characteristic from Table 3, plus the total effect due to. The average value of an uneducated adult male during the six-year period after the embargo and the war in New Orleans was $8,008 and in non-New Orleans $7,268.
