The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades
View/ Open
Author
Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1162/qjec.2008.123.1.139Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Nunn, Nathan. 2008. The long-term effects of Africa's slave trades. Quarterly Journal of Economics 123(1): 139-176.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 To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa's slave trades.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 had an adverse effect on economic development.Terms of Use
This article is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of-use#LAACitable link to this page
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3710252
Collections
- FAS Scholarly Articles [18292]
Contact administrator regarding this item (to report mistakes or request changes)