The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades
利用航运记录和历史文献中的奴隶族群数据，估算非洲各国在奴隶贸易期间出口的奴隶数量，发现其与当前经济表现存在稳健的负相关关系，并借助工具变量等方法论证了奴隶贸易对经济发展的不利影响。
Can part of Africa's current underdevelopment be explained by its slave trades? To explore this question, I use data from shipping records and historical documents reporting slave ethnicities to construct estimates of the number of slaves exported from each country during Africa's slave trades. I find a robust negative relationship between the number of slaves exported from a country and current economic performance. To better understand if the relationship is causal, I examine the historical evidence on selection into the slave trades and use instrumental variables. Together the evidence suggests that the slave trades had an adverse effect on economic development.