Trade restrictions impact factor and commodity prices in very predictable ways according to international trade theory. We use a new data set to explore the direct effect on the price of slaves that resulted from legislation prohibiting the importation of slaves after January 1, 1808....

Gravity model explanations of trade volumes frequently include dummy variables to account for the commonality of language among trading partners. In this paper we use a data set for the number of people in a country who speak English as a first language or English as a second language (Crystal,...

We introduce a measure of language difficulty called "linguistic distance" into a modified gravity model to determine whether the fact that a language is further away from English affects the level of trade. Our sample of 36 non-English speaking countries includes Japan and South Korea, which we...

We utilize a previously untapped data source, Gwendolyn Hall (1999), to examine the market for slaves in Louisiana, both in New Orleans and outside of New Orleans. We are able to study the process of price determination in two separate markets over a period of 95 years for the former and 64...

Wright (1990) presents evidence on the factor content of trade that indicates the United States tended to export goods that were raw materials intensive. Using factor per unit of output ratios derived from the United States Census of Manu-factures, we are able to supplement Wright's findings for...

This paper examines the impact of a stock of immigrants in the United States on American exports to their home country during the period 1870 to 1910. Our data set spans the exports of 44 commodities to 17 countries observed at 5 year intervals. We use a modified gravity model to examine this...

At the time when the Panama Canal was handed over to Panama, most people believed that the Canal was of little material worth to the United States.� However, what was the value of this canal to the United States in the 1920s?� We estimate the social savings generated by the Panama...