Events

Labor Coercion and Trade: Evidence from Colonial Indonesia

What determines the use of labor coercion? Mark Hup of Peking University studies the impact of trade on corvée labor – the payment of taxation in labor – in colonial Indonesia. To do so, he constructs a unique database on corvée usage and exports at the residency-product-year level from 1900 to 1940. The results show that trade booms, especially of labor-intensive exports, reduced corvée usage. The effect ran through laborers buying themselves out of corvée. The buy-out option enabled high-productivity laborers to self-select out of corvée without requiring stronger information-collection capabilities of the state. Through such buyouts, the fall in in-kind taxation was mirrored by a rise in monetary taxation. The opposite took place during the trade collapse of the Great Depression. While some studies find a positive relationship between trade and private labor coercion, Mark Hup argues public labor coercion follows a different logic due to the state’s encompassing interest. In this Quantitative History Lecture, Mark Hup will explain how the nature of the relationship between coercer and coerced is thus key in understanding labor coercion.

Thursday, November 16
12:00 @May Hall, HKU Campus, Hong Kong
Live on Zoom | 12:00 Beijing/Singapore | 13:00 Tokyo | 15:00 Sydney
Wed, Nov 15 Previous Day 20:00 Los Angeles

The Quantitative History (QH) Webinar Series aims to provide researchers, teachers, and students with an online intellectual platform to keep up to date with the latest research in the field, promoting the dissemination of research findings and interdisciplinary use of quantitative methods in historical research. The QH Webinar Series, now entering its fourth year, is co-organized by Centre for Quantitative History at the HKU Business School and International Society for Quantitative History in partnership with Hong Kong Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Series is now substantially supported by the Areas of Excellence (AoE) Scheme from the Research Grants Council of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China (Project No. [AoE/B-704/22-R]). 量化歷史網上講座系列由香港大學陳志武和馬馳騁教授聯合發起，旨在介紹前沿量化歷史研究成果、促進同仁交流，推廣量化方法在歷史研究中的應用。本系列講座由香港大學經管學院量化歷史研究中心和國際量化歷史學會承辦，及香港人文社會研究所全力支持。從2023年開始，系列得到中國香港特別行政區研究資助局卓越學科領域計劃的重要資助 (項目編號[AoE/B-704/22-R])。

Conveners:
Professor Zhiwu Chen
Dr. Chicheng Ma