The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades - Social Sciences ...

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column 2, I control for country size by the natural log of land area. An alternative strategy is to normalize the number of slaves exported by land area. This is done in column 3. In columns 4 and 5, I use the average population of a country in every century between 1400 and 1900 as a measure of country size. 15 The population data are from McEvedy and Jones (1978). In columns 6 to 10, I re-estimate the specifications from columns 1 to 5, except that indicator variables for the identity of the colonizer at the time of independence are included in the regression equations. 16 In each of the ten specifications, the slave export variables are negatively correlated with subsequent economic development and they are statistically significant. The results are independent of how one controls for country size and whether or not the identity of the colonizer is controlled for. The relationship between the natural log of slave exports normalized by land area and the natural log of real GDP per capita in 2000 is shown in Figure 3. In the raw data one observes a statistically significant negative relationship between past slave exports and current income per capita. 17 Figure 4 shows the same graph with slave exports normalized by a country’s average population between 1400 and 1900. The partial regression plot for ln(exports/area) from the regression from column 8 of Table 4 is shown in Figure 5. The plot shows that the relationship is not driven by a small number of influential observations. I confirm this with more formal sensitivity and robustness tests in Section 7. The estimated magnitudes of the relationship between slave trades and income are economically significant. The beta coefficients of the estimates for ln(exports/area) range from −.45 to −.61. 18 If, for purely illustrative purposes, one interprets the OLS estimates as causal, then according to the column 8 estimate, for a country initially with the mean level of income of $1,249, a one standard deviation decrease in the slave export variable will raise income to $2,850. One obtains similar results if average annual per capita GDP growth between 1950 and 2000 is used as the measure of economic development. 15 I have also used the initial population in 1400, 1450 or 1500, or the post-slave trade population in 1950 or 2000, as measures. Using any of these alternative population measures produces similar results. 16 The results are robust if one uses alternative definitions of the colonizer for each country. I have also used indicator variables for the identity of the colonizer on the eve of World War I, rather than at independence. The results are nearly identical. 17 Because the natural log of zero is undefined, I take the natural log of .1. As I show in Section 7, the results are robust to the removal of the zero slave export countries. 18 The beta coefficient is the change in the dependent variable, measured in standard deviations, per one standard deviation change in the independent variable. 20
This is not surprising given that within Africa income levels in 2000 are highly correlated with economic growth from 1950 to 2000. The correlation between the two measures is .73. 21
Page 1 and 2: The Long-Term Effects of Africa’s
Page 3 and 4: and these countries continue to be
Page 5 and 6: the total volume of slaves traded w
Page 7 and 8: of slaves, when possible they inter
Page 9 and 10: that prevails today. 9 2.2.3 Deteri
Page 11 and 12: 3 Slave Export Data 3.1 Constructio
Page 13 and 14: ethnicities of Africans. Hall (2005
Page 15 and 16: slave caravans allows one to produc
Page 17 and 18: Figure 2: African ethnicities and c
Page 19: Table 3: Total Slave Exports from 1
Page 23 and 24: Relationship Between Current Income
Page 25 and 26: 5 Econometric Issues: Causality and
Page 27 and 28: most impacted by the slave trades.
Page 29 and 30: USA; Havana, Cuba; Haiti; Kingston,
Page 31 and 32: Table 5: IV Estimates Using Distanc
Page 33 and 34: 5.2.2 Initial Population Density Th
Page 35 and 36: of coastline divided by land area,
Page 37 and 38: Table 8: Testing potential channels
Page 39 and 40: Table 10: Robustness and Sensitivit
Page 41 and 42: causing current underdevelopment. I
Page 43 and 44: B.1 Using Distance to Slave Markets
Page 45 and 46: The rule of law in 2000 is from Kau
Page 47 and 48: References Acemoglu, Daron, “Rewa
Page 49 and 50: Engerman, Stanley L., and Kenneth L
Page 51 and 52: ———, Transformations in Slave

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