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Finding Eldorado: Slavery and Long-run Development in Colombia

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  • Daron Acemoglu
  • Camilo García-Jimeno
  • James A. Robinson

Abstract

Slavery has been a major institution of labor coercion throughout history. Colonial societies used slavery intensively across the Americas, and slavery remained prevalent in most countries after independence from the European powers. We investigate the impact of slavery on long-run development in Colombia. Our identification strategy compares municipalities that had gold mines during the 17th and 18th centuries to neighboring municipalities without gold mines. Gold mining was a major source of demand for slave labor during colonial times, and all colonial gold mines are now depleted. We find that the historical presence of slavery is associated with increased poverty and reduced school enrollment, vaccination coverage and public good provision. We also find that slavery is associated with higher contemporary land inequality.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 18177.

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Date of creation: Jun 2012
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:18177

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As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. All that Glitters Is Not Gold: Gold Mines, Slavery, and Development in Colombia
    by Marc F. Bellemare in Marc F. Bellemare on 2012-06-26 09:00:30
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Cited by:
  1. Maloney, William F. & Caicedo, Felipe Valencia, 2012. "The persistence of (subnational) fortune : geography, agglomeration, and institutions in the new world," Policy Research Working Paper Series 6187, The World Bank.
  2. Irena Grosfeld & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya, 2013. "Persistent effects of empires: Evidence from the partitions of Poland," PSE Working Papers halshs-00795231, HAL.

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