On the Causes of the African Slave Trade and African Underdevelopment
نویسندگان
چکیده
This papers analyses the causes behind Africas unfortunate transformation into the source of the worlds slaves over the early modern period. We discuss the economic and technological forces leading to it, and address questions such as why were most slave buyers Europeans and most slave sellers Africans. We then relate the discussion to the long-term determinants of African underdevelopment, and argue for the role of biogeography as an ultimate explanatory factor of Africas past slave trade and its current economic situation. Keywords: Africa; Slave Trade; Long-term development; Technologies; Biogeography; Culture. JEL classi cation: O13, O14, O33, N17, N37.
منابع مشابه
On the causes of the African Slave Trade
This paper offers an integrated analysis of the forces shaping the emergence of the African slave trade over the early modern period. We focus our attention on two questions. First, why most of the increase in the demand for slaves during this period came exclusively from western Europeans. Second, and of most relevance for present-day development outcomes, why was the overwhelming majority of ...
متن کاملMtDNA haplogroup analysis of black Brazilian and sub-Saharan populations: implications for the Atlantic slave trade.
Seventy individuals from two African and four black Brazilian populations were studied for the first hypervariable segment of mtDNA. To delineate a more complete phylogeographic scenario of the African mtDNA haplogroups in Brazil and to provide additional information on the nature of the Atlantic slave trade, we analyzed our data together with previously published data. The results indicate dif...
متن کاملThe Historical Roots of Firm Access to Finance: Evidence from the African Slave Trade
This paper shows that access to finance is the crucial factor in explaining the link between the historical African slave trade and current GDP. We show: (1) The slave trade is strongly linked to current firm access to finance; (2) Among all the business obstacles a firm faces, the slave trade affects only access to finance; and (3) The slave trade erodes access to both formal credit and the tr...
متن کاملStock (Mis) Pricing and Diversification in Africa: Evidence from Selected African Exchanges
T his paper ascertains the extent of mispricing in equity portfolios, mispricing-divestment relation, and the role of African equities as risk diversification strategies during commodity market turbulence. Following Baur and Lucey (2010), one identifies an arbitrary commodity market crisis to be 1%, 5%, and 10% declining moments in returns. However, their approach is extended by usin...
متن کاملMajor Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in the West African Economic and Monetary Region
The main concern of this paper is to answer the question of the determinants of FDI inflows to West African Economic and Monetary Union (WAEMU). The literature on FDI recognizes not only the existence of gaps between domestic savings and investment in most developing countries but also that FDI constitutes a cure capable to bring the latest technology and management know-how into these countrie...
متن کامل