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The Total Product of Barbados, 1664–1701

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

David Elitis
Affiliation:
Associate Professor of History at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, K7L 3N6, Canada and Research Fellow at the Du Bois Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138.

Abstract

Estimates of total and per capita product for Barbados are derived for 1665 and 1666 and 1699 to 1701 from trade statistics and new data on the distribution and composition of produce entered into the customs books of the island. The share of exports in total product–central to the estimate of total product–is linked to the share of the labor force in the export sector. Per capita Barbados product is estimated to have been one- to two-thirds higher than in England and Wales, and per capita exports are estimated well above those of their Chesapeake counterparts.

Type
Papers Presented at the Forty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Economic History Association
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1995

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