Slavery, coercion, and economic development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Leigh Gardner

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Recent debates on the economic history of the United States and other regions have revisited the question of the extent to which slavery and other forms of labor coercion contributed to the development of economic and political institutions. This article aims to bring Africa into this global debate, examining the contributions of slavery and coercion to periods of economic growth during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It argues that the coercion of labor in a variety of forms was a key part of African political economy, and thus when presented with opportunities for growth, elites turned first to the expansion of coerced labor. However, while labor coercion could help facilitate short-run growth, it also made the transition to sustained growth more difficult.

Keywords: Africa; economic development; slavery forced labor; forced labor; slavery (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N37 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 25 pages
Date: 2023-09-25
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-evo, nep-gro and nep-his
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Published in Business History Review, 25, September, 2023, 97(2), pp. 199-223. ISSN: 0007-6805

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120394/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Slavery, Coercion, and Economic Development in Sub-Saharan Africa (2023)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:120394

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