Price Transmission in the Antebellum Slave Markets: A Time Series Analysis

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2002

Publication Title

Review of Regional Studies

Abstract

This paper examines how price shocks in antebellum slave markets were transmitted to surrounding slave markets. A newly developed time series econometric technique is utilized to estimate the transmission of price shocks among slave markets and to investigate the univariate and multivariate time series properties of slave prices in four geographically dispersed markets. The results suggest that these markets were linked and that information flowed from one market to another. The westward, expansionary path of the slave economy is confirmed by a greater magnitude of impact from price shocks in markets to the east of the location in which the shock originated and a greater degree of unidirectional price linkage between slave markets. This new empirical evidence describes the connectedness of regional slave markets in the antebellum South and demonstrates that the overall market was effective. The paper also provides a foundation for addressing additional issues such as slave price convergence.

Comments

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CCBY-4.0). View this license’s legal deed and legal code for more information.

Copyright

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CCBY-4.0). View this license’s legal deed and legal code for more information.

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