“The Curse of the Caribbean”? Agency’s Impact on the Productivity of Sugar Estates on St. Vincent and the Grenadines, 1814–1829
利用19世纪初圣文森特和格林纳丁斯的庄园面板数据，估计代理人管理对糖业生产率的影响，发现代理人管理的庄园生产率并不低于所有者管理的庄园。
This study estimates agency’s impact on sugar plantation productivity using a unique early nineteenth-century panel data set from St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Results of fixed effects models, combined with a qualitative and quantitative analysis of potential endogeneity of the agency variable, provide no evidence that estates managed by agents were less productive than those managed by their owners. We discuss the results in the context of the historical and recent, revisionary, interpretations of agency, and the emergence of managerial hierarchies in the Atlantic economy.