Human capital and other determinants in the life cycle of the price of a slave: The case of spanish america in the eighteenth century

Abstract

This paper analizes the determinants of the price life cicle of a slave, dealing particularly with the impact of the human capital, both with respect to skills and health. The paper details the source of the sample -including more than two thousand Spanish American Slaves of the 18th Century-and discusses its reliability, moving on to a descriptive analysis in the geographic and historical context. Later on it looks at the factors influencing price in several types of economic activity, and ends by comparing the conclusions with those obtained in other studies.