Prices and living standards
Evidence from Cape Colony auction rolls
Dados Bibliográficos
| ID | 23311473 |
|---|---|
| Autores | Leoné Walters (0000-0003-1009-9510, University of Cape Town), Jonathan Schoots (0000-0001-6621-7964, University of the Witwatersrand), Dionel Barbosa (0000-0002-1825-0097, Stellenbosch University, autor correspondente), Johan Fourie (0000-0002-7341-017X) |
| Ano | 2026 |
| Data de publicação | 2026-07-24 |
| Peer Reviewed | Sim |
| Open Access | Sim |
| Tipo | ARTICLE |
| Periódico | Cliometrica (JOURNAL) |
| Identificadores do periódico | ISSN: 1863-2505 • E-ISSN: 1863-2513 |
| Editora | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s11698-026-00339-9 |
| OpenAlex | W7170606280 |
| Idioma | EN |
| Referências citadas | 40 |
We construct an annual price index for the Cape Colony, 1718–1812, from more than 200,000 transactions recorded in estate-auction rolls. These records allow us to compute Laspeyres indices for a broad set of goods, including productive assets (livestock, equipment, and enslaved persons) and household durables (major, minor, and luxury items). By moving beyond subsistence baskets, we capture both the cost of acquiring inputs used to generate income and the cost of furnishing a household in a pre-industrial, highly regulated settler economy where wage data are sparse or distorted. We show that auction-derived price movements align with independent proxies for economic conditions—such as ship traffic, pacht prices, consumer prices, and GDP per capita—and that household durables became cheaper relative to productive assets over the long run. These patterns suggest that auction prices provide a useful complementary lens on living standards in colonial contexts where conventional real wage series are unavailable or institutionally constrained.
Consumer price index (South Africa) · Cost of living · Index (typography) · Price index · Standard of living · Subsistence agriculture · Wage · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Historical Economic and Social Studies
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| Velocidade de citação | historical |
|---|---|
| Altamente citado | Não |