The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades

Nathan Nunn ()

MPRA Paper from University Library of Munich, Germany

Abstract: Can part of Africa’s current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades? To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa’s slave trades. I find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from a country and current economic performance. To better understand if the relationship is causal, I examine the historical evidence on selection into the slave trades, and use instrumental variables. Together the evidence suggests that the slave trades have had an adverse effect on economic development.

Keywords: Africa; Slave trade; Economic development (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O1 F1 O55 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-afr, nep-dev and nep-his
Date: 2007-07
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http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/4134/

Related works:
Working Paper: The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades (2007)
Journal Article: The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades (2008)
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Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pra:mprapa:4134

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