On the trend and variability of 18th century British transatlantic slave prices

Easaw, Joshy ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3476-4300 and Ghoshray, Atanu 2026. On the trend and variability of 18th century British transatlantic slave prices. Cliodynamics: The Journal of Quantitative History and Cultural Evolution 17 (1) , pp. 107-127. 10.21237/C7CLIO.48537

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Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the trend of 18th century British slave prices. We apply robust econometric procedures on slave price data constructed by Whatley (2018) over the period 1699 to 1807 and find evidence of a structural break in 1740, thereby advocating a broken trend. We estimate the trend over two regimes demarcated by the structural break, concluding there is no significant trend in the first regime prior to 1740. However, in the second regime, slave prices show a significant positive trend increasing annually at around 2.4%. Since 1740, the slave prices are close to constant variance, lending support to the tighter confidence intervals that we obtain in the second regime. We document various accounts by historians that can help explain this steady increase, focusing on supply and demand side arguments.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Business (Including Economics)
ISSN:	2373-7530
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 October 2026
Last Modified:	02 Oct 2026 08:45
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/189932

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