THREE ESSAYS ON THE ECONOMICS OF INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

This Dissertation applies the tools of Economic analysis to explore historical institutions of the 19th and early 20th centuries in the United States. Chapters one and two emerged as part of a research project to explore neglected aspects of the economics of slavery. Chapter one explores the economics of slave hiring in the Antebellum South. The market for slave-hiring was characterized by a double principal-agent problem. Slave-owners did not want to hire their enslaved workers to hirers who would harm their slaves. Therefore, slave-owners were more likely to hire out their slaves to industries which were more likely to rely on reward incentives (carrots) to motivate their slaves, i.e. the crafts and service industries. Chapter two explores the regulation of manumission in the Antebellum South. State legislatures passed laws which restricted or prohibited a slave-owner’s ability to free his/her slave. Why would it matter to a legislature how a slave-owner treated his/her slave? Allowing the increase in the Freedman population would impose strong negative externalities on the state legislators who often were large-scale slave holders (those who owned fifteen or more slaves). Chapter three examines the political economy of barber’s licensure. In the 19th century, some states passed laws requiring barbers to be licensed through a state board. The justification used was fears of a communicable disease known as Barber’s Itch. This regulation licensed benefited barber shops by eliminated competition from Barber’s Colleges and journeyman barbers.