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Editor's choice The Impact of the Slave Trade on Literacy in West Africa: Evidence from the Colonial Era

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  • Nonso Obikili

Abstract

Recent studies have highlighted the importance of Africa's history of slave exporting to its current economic development. In this article, I show that differences in investment in education may be one of the channels through which that history has affected current development. I combine data on literacy rates of administrative districts from the colonial censuses of Nigeria and Ghana from the 1950s with data on slave exports of different ethnic groups. I find a negative and significant relationship between slave export intensity before the colonial era and literacy rates during the colonial era. I also use contemporary data on literacy rates to show that this negative relationship is still present and significant. Thus, I show the effect of the slave trades on development outcomes predates modern independent African countries and still persists.

Suggested Citation

  • Nonso Obikili, 2016. "Editor's choice The Impact of the Slave Trade on Literacy in West Africa: Evidence from the Colonial Era," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 25(1), pages 1-27.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:jafrec:v:25:y:2016:i:1:p:1-27.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/jae/ejv018
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    Cited by:

    1. Leoné Walters & Carolyn Chisadza & Matthew Clance, 2024. "Slave trades, kinship structures and women's political participation in Africa," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3), pages 734-758, August.
    2. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    3. Remi Jedwab & Felix Meier zu Selhausen & Alexander Moradi, 2022. "The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 149-192, June.
    4. Gershman, Boris, 2020. "Witchcraft beliefs as a cultural legacy of the Atlantic slave trade: Evidence from two continents," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. Christoph Scherrer, 2018. "The Disrupted Passage from an Agrarian Rural to an Industrial Urban Workforce in Most Countries in the Global South," Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South, vol. 7(3), pages 301-319, December.

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