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Beyond the chains: Slavery and Africa’s wealth gap with the world

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  • Andrew Phiri

    (Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University)

Abstract

Slave trades represent one of the most controversial historical events experienced over the last millennium and many researchers are in consensus of the legacy of slavery being one of the deepest underlying factors behind Africa’s current state of underdevelopment. This study seeks to quantify the effects which slave exports exerted on per capita GDP differences between 49 Africa and the rest of the world during the period of 2000-2018. Our findings unanimously point to a statistically significantly inverse relationship between slave exports and income differences hence supporting the intuition of slavery being a fundamentally deep root of developmental differences between Africa and the rest of the world. Our results are robust to adjusted measures of slave exports; inclusion of additional control variables; colonial dummy effects well as to the exclusion of outliers.

Suggested Citation

  • Andrew Phiri, 2020. "Beyond the chains: Slavery and Africa’s wealth gap with the world," Working Papers 2003, Department of Economics, Nelson Mandela University, revised Mar 2020.
    • Handle: RePEc:mnd:wpaper:2003
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Slave exports; income gap; Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C21 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Cross-Sectional Models; Spatial Models; Treatment Effect Models
    • D63 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement
    • I31 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - General Welfare, Well-Being
    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania

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