Estimating the contribution of enslaved workers to output and growth in the United States during the first half of the nineteenth century is a crucial building block to better understand the contours of nineteenth-century US economic history, and more generally, the connection between slavery and capitalism. Existing estimates only present a partial picture and are potentially problematic. In this paper, we use data on enslaved person valuations to calculate the contribution made by enslaved workers to regional and national gross national product (GNP) in 1839 and 1859 and to the growth in per capita output in the 20 years before the Civil War. We find that in the United States, enslaved workers were responsible for somewhere between 12.49 per cent and 18.0 per cent of the increase in output per capita between 1839 and 1859.

中文翻译：

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战前美国奴隶工人对产出和增长的贡献

估计 19 世纪上半叶被奴役工人对美国产出和增长的贡献是更好地了解 19 世纪美国经济历史轮廓以及更广泛地了解奴隶制与资本主义之间联系的关键基础。现有的估计仅提供了部分情况，并且可能存在问题。在本文中，我们使用被奴役者估值数据来计算被奴役工人对 1839 年和 1859 年地区和国家国民生产总值 (GNP) 以及内战前 20 年人均产出增长的贡献。我们发现，在美国，1839 年至 1859 年间，奴隶制工人对人均产出增长的贡献率在 12.49% 至 18.0% 之间。