The Demographic Effects of Colonialism: Forced Labor and Mortality in Java, 1834–1879
研究了19世纪爪哇殖民强迫劳动制度下劳动力需求与死亡率的关系，发现劳动力需求增加显著推高死亡率，主要源于营养不良、卫生条件差和传染病传播。
We investigate the demographic effects of forced labor under an extractive colonial regime: the Cultivation System in nineteenth-century Java. Our panel analyses show that labor demands are strongly positively associated with mortality rates, likely resulting from malnourishment and unhygienic conditions on plantations and the spread of infectious diseases. An instrumental variable approach, using international market prices for coffee and sugar for predicting labor demands, addresses potential endogeneity concerns. Our estimates suggest that without the abolition of the Cultivation System average overall mortality in Java would have been between 10 and 30 percent higher by the late 1870s.