2021/04/05 by Craig Palsson · 1 citation
Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Engineering · #Culture, Economy, and Development Studies #Land Rights and Reforms #Colonialism, slavery, and trade #Transaction cost #Boom #Proxy (statistics) #Database transaction #Sugar cane #Cane #Work (physics) #Business #Agricultural economics #Economics #Property rights #Economic shortage #Natural resource economics #Sugar #Agricultural science #Finance #Microeconomics #Environmental science #Engineering
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/s0022050721000139
openalex publication_date 2021/04/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04
In the eighteenth century, Haiti was the world’s leading sugar producer, but when cane surged in the Caribbean in the early twentieth century, Haiti produced none. Instead, the land sat idle while workers emigrated to work on sugar plantations. I examine the hypothesis that historical property rights institutions created high transaction costs for converting land to cane production. I collect new data on land-use from 1928–1950 and a proxy for transaction costs. The evidence suggests transaction costs impeded the land market from responding to the sugar boom.