【Empirical Seminar】The Long Shadow of Slavery on Technological Adoption: Evidence from the US South
2025/07/29
研討會日期 : 2025-07-29
時間 : 14:30
主講人 : Professor Yeonha Jung
地點 : Conference Room B110
主持人 : Professor Terry Cheung
演講者簡介 : Professor Yeonha Jung received his Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor at Sungkyunkwan University. His research interests are Economic Development, Economic History, Economics of Culture, and Labor Economics.
演講摘要 : This study examines the enduring legacy of slavery on agricultural technology adoption and structural transformation. Drawing on the literature suggesting that a higher prevalence of slavery led to more discriminatory labor markets against Black workers in the postbellum South, we hypothesize that historical slave concentration impeded the adoption of labor-saving agricultural technologies, thereby hindering structural transformation in the locality. Evidence supports this hypothesis: counties with higher slave-to-population ratios in 1860 experienced greater shifts to crops less exposed to labor-saving technical change and a reduced rate of tractor adoption around 1950, a period marked by a significant surge in tractorization across the US. Furthermore, we show that the slower adoption of tractors was accompanied by slower manufacturing growth.
