The Long-Term Effects of Africa ’ s Slave Trades

Can part of Africa’s current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades? To explore this question empirically, I combined data from ship records with data from various historical documents reporting slave ethnicities, and construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa’s slave trades between 1400 and 1900. I find a strong robust negative correlation between the number of slaves exported from a country and its current economic performance. To better understand if the relationship is causal, I examine the historical evidence on selection into the slave trades, I use instrumental variables, and I control for observable country characteristics. The results suggest that the relationship between slave exports and current economic performance is causal. I then test for potential channels of causality. Consistent with the historic evidence, the data indicate that the effects of the slave trades are through ethnic fractionalization, weakened states, and a decline in the quality of domestic institutions. JEL classification: F14; N17; N47; P16.

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