The long-term effects of Africa's slave trades

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Nunn, Nathan
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
• 刊物名称: QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0033-5533
• DOI: 10.1162/qjec.2008.123.1.139
• 发表日期: 2008
• 页码: 139-176
• 关键词: COLONIAL LEGACIES; public-goods; STATES; institutions; geography; GROWTH

摘要

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 To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa's slave trades.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.