Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/247105 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
EHES Working Paper No. 175
Publisher: 
European Historical Economics Society (EHES), s.l.
Abstract: 
During the period spanning independence in 1822 to mid-century, Brazil's southeast shifted from specialising in the export of cane sugar to coffee. This paper explores the mechanism underlying this shift by exploiting a wealth of new monthly data on the Brazilian and international coffee and cane sugar markets during the period 1827-40. I argue that the timing of the coffee boom was driven by a rapid increase in foreign market potential associated with the abolition of the tariff on coffee in the United States. I estimate that American tariff reform served to increase coffee exports and African slave imports by around one-fifth. American firms, with indirect links to the slave trade, rapidly became major players in the export market in Rio de Janeiro, while non-American firms, traditionally specialised in Continental European destinations, turned their sights on the American market.
Subjects: 
Coffee
Brazil
slavery
tariffs
market potential
JEL: 
N56
N76
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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