Ship Crowding and Slave Mortality: Missing Observations or Incorrect Measurement?
研究发现，跨大西洋奴隶贸易数据库中使用的吨位数据存在严重缺陷，修正后显示拥挤仅在英国奴隶船上且在1788年《多尔本法案》通过前才增加死亡率。
Inconsistent measurement of ship tonnage, the denominator in the usual measures of crowded conditions on slave vessels, may confound estimated associations between crowding and slave mortality on the Middle Passage. The tonnages reported in Lloyd's Registers are shown to be consistent over time and are used to demonstrate that both the unstandardized and standardized tonnages in the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database are deeply flawed. Using corrected tonnages, we find that crowding increased mortality only on British slave ships and only before the passage of Dolben's Act in 1788.