TY  - JOUR
AU  - Field-Hendre,Elizabeth B.
AU  - Craig,Lee A.
TI  - Were Free Southern Farmers "Driven to Indolence" by Slavery? A Stochastic Production Frontier Approach
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Historical Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 82
PY  - 1996
Y2  - April 1996
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0082
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/h0082.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Lee A. Craig
Department of Economics
North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC 27695-8110
Tel: 919/515-2870
Fax: 919/515-5613
E-Mail: lee_craig@ncsu.edu
AB  - Antebellum critics of slavery argued that it was responsible for the relative inefficiency of free southern farms.  We examine this issue, employing a stochastic production function, which allows us to distinguish between technological superiority and technical inefficiency, and controlling for crop mix, which we treat as endogenous.  We find that although large plantations enjoyed a technological advantage, slave farms were less efficient than free northern farms but more efficient than free southern farms.  In addition, free southern farms were significantly less efficient than comparable northern farms.
ER  -