TY  - JOUR
AU  - Mancall,Peter C.
AU  - Rosenbloom,Joshua L.
AU  - Weiss,Thomas
TI  - Agricultural Labor Productivity in the Lower South, 1720-1800
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 8375
PY  - 2001
Y2  - July 2001
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8375
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w8375.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Joshua Rosenbloom
Department of Economics
University of Kansas
Snow Hall 436
1460 Jayhawk Blvd
Lawrence, KS  66045-2113
Tel: 785/864-2839
Fax: 785/864-5270
E-Mail: jrosenbloom@ku.edu

Thomas J. Weiss
Department of Economics
University of Kansas
Lawrence, KS  66045
Tel: 785/840-6878
Fax:  785/864-5270
E-Mail: t-weiss@ku.edu
AB  - Agriculture dominated the economy of eighteenth-century British America, and the pace of agricultural productivity advance was the primary determinant of the rate of economic growth.  In this paper we offer new measures of agricultural productivity advance in the Lower South between 1720 and 1800.  Past efforts and quantification have focused exclusively on the region's export performance.  In addition to extending and refining measures of regional exports, we develop two new series based on the value of slave labor and on measurements of total agricultural production in the region.  Despite differences in their short-term behavior, all of the indices show that long-run productivity improvements were modest at best, and may have been negative.  Surprisingly, taking account of production for domestic consumption yields the most favorable long-term performance.
ER  -