Is There a Long-Term Effect of Africa's Slave Trades?

Abstract

The purpose of the Economic History Working Papers (Quaderni di Storia economica) is to promote the circulation of preliminary versions of working papers on growth, finance, money, institutions prepared within the Bank of Italy or presented at Bank seminars by external speakers with the aim of stimulating comments and suggestions. The present series substitutes the Historical Research papers -Quaderni dell'Ufficio Ricerche Storiche. The views expressed in the articles are those of the authors and do not involve the responsibility of the Bank.

LATE for History

“…21 A similar discussion could pertain, for instance, to the negative relationship between past slave exports and economic performance within Africa, uncovered by Nunn (2008), if this effect appears when the dependent variable, economic performance, is measured in 1980, but not when measured in 1960, as suggested by Bottero and Wallace (2013). This would indicate the interaction of the effects of slave trade with a more recent phenomenon, like e.g., de-colonization.…”

“…See Cantoni and Yuchtman (2021, in this book) for a related argument.19 Following the logic exposed in Footnote 17, we could reasonably consider institutional quality and the Industrial Revolution as jointly causal.20 In fact, inAcemoglu et al (2002), the identifying variation in the regression between postindustrialization production per capita and the interaction of institutions quality and opportunities to industrialize is the variation of U.K. industrial output over time, between 1750 and 1980.21 A similar discussion could pertain, for instance, to the negative relationship between past slave exports and economic performance within Africa, uncovered byNunn (2008), if this effect appears when the dependent variable, economic performance, is measured in 1980, but not when measured in 1960, as suggested byBottero and Wallace (2013). This would indicate the interaction of the effects of slave trade with a more recent phenomenon, like e.g., de-colonization.…”

How the International Slave Trades Underdeveloped Africa

“…The other is a positive long-term effect of political centralization (Michalopoulos andPapaioannou 2013, 2015;Englebert 2000). The institutions of slavery were key institutions in both precolonial and colonial Africa, which helps explain why the negative effects on income do not show up until after colonialism (Bezemer, Bolt, and Lensink 2014;Bottero and Wallace 2013). Similarly, virtually all centralized precolonial African societies were slave societies, so some of the long-term benefits of political centralization accrued during the colonial era as well.…”

“… 26 Bezemer, Bolt, and Lensink (2014) report OLS results showing negative effects of slave exports on state-level GDP per capita from 1990 to 2008, but not before (1950–1980). Bottero and Wallace (2013) find a negative effect on income per capita after 1970, but not before.…”

“… 1 Nunn (2008), Nunn and Wantchekon (2011), Dalton and Cheuk Leung (2014), Bertocchi (2015), Obikili (2016a, 2016b), Whatley (2014), Whatley and Gillezeau (2011b), Bottero and Wallace (2013), Boxell, (2019), Levine, Lin, and Xei (forthcoming), Pierce and Snyder (2018), Besley and Reynal-Querol (2014), Bhattacharyya (2009). …”