Ligado ao centro de pesquisa aplicada Instituições e Desenvolvimento, o Seminário de Economia Política e História Econômica tem por objetivo fomentar pesquisas acadêmicas interdisciplinares em economia, ciências sociais e humanidades. Os participantes serão professores da EESP e convidados; em comum, suas pesquisas combinam análise quantitativa e qualitativa que expanda a fronteira do conhecimento em economia política e história econômica.

Bruno Witzel (Tübingen)

Legacies of Slavery or a Brave New World? Labor productivity and remuneration in the Brazilian coffee economy: new microdata evidence from Ibicaba plantation (1890-1950)

Abstract

Assessing the origins of productivity differentials is crucial for the understanding of modern economic growth and the origins of income gaps between ethnolinguistic groups. Yet, our knowledge remains scanty when it comes to historical microeconomic data in low- and middle-income countries, particularly in agricultural production. The project Labor, livelihood, and immigration in a Brazilian plantation: the archives of Ibicaba has shed new light onto this issue by creating and digitizing a historical archive at Ibicaba. One of Brazil’s most important historical plantations, it was in Ibicaba that European immigrants were first systematically introduced as indentured laborers in the epoch preceding the abolition of slavery. By making use of disaggregated and high frequency data for the period 1890-1950, this paper studies the determinants of agricultural labor productivity and remuneration in the leading Brazilian sector and region of that time: São Paulo’s coffee economy. The richness of the new data allows us to control for households’ demographic composition, number of coffee groves cultivated and their exact location within the plantation, place of residence and housing amenities of each household, as well as their ethnolinguistic origins. Using these controls to estimate a neoclassical production function during the lean and harvest seasons, the paper first computes the Total Factor Productivity (TFP) of each household. In the sequence, households’ TFPs are controlled for in a specification that assesses the determinants of labor income, including controls for ethnolinguistic origins (non-whites, Brazilian whites, and various European nationalities). The paper thus provides a unique identification for the determinants of remuneration differentials between ethnolinguistic groups, both in the immediate post-abolition, as well in the long-run. Preliminary results show that non-whites had the worst income profile among all ethnolinguistic groups. Surprisingly, however, once TFPs are controlled for, indicators for ethnolinguistic origins are not a statistically significant determinant of labor income. The main burden of slavery identified in this paper is thus demographic: in a historical juncture that prized large households and an efficient domestic division of labor, the very small and usually nuclear families of the ex-enslaved proved crucial for their income gaps relatively to other ethnolinguistic groups. In addition, Brazilians that were not identified as non-whites (i.e. “white Brazilians” with Iberian surnames) had the best income profiles in the sample, with German-speakers and Portuguese immigrants following suit. The mass of Italian immigrants, in turn, showed a bimodal distribution in their income profiles, indicating the existence of a non-negligible group of Europeans who failed in their purpose of “making America”. 

Bruno Gabriel Witzel de Souza possui graduação em Ciências Econômicas pela Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade da Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP), sendo mestre e doutor em Economia do Desenvolvimento pela Universidade de Göttingen. Atuou como professor visitante na Universidade Jacobs Bremen (2020) e na Universidade de Aarhus (2022), além de professor assistente visitante na Universidade da Califórnia, Los Angeles (UCLA, 2023/4) e pesquisador associado à Universidade de Tübingen (2024).

Mais informações: leonardo.weller@fgv.br

Evento destinado aos alunos de pós-graduação.