Small Farms, Large Transaction Costs: Haiti’s Missing Sugar

In the eighteenth century, Haiti was world’s leading sugar producer, but when cane surged in Caribbean early twentieth produced none. Instead, land sat idle while workers emigrated to work on plantations. I examine hypothesis that historical property rights institutions created high transaction costs for converting production. collect new data land-use from 1928–1950 and a proxy costs. The evidence suggests impeded market responding boom.