The slave trade continues to shape modern Africa. This column analyzes environmental shocks to the supply side of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and their long-term effects. During warm periods, African ports exported fewer slaves because lower agricultural productivity raised slavers' costs. These temperature fluctuations had long-run impacts, and ports that experienced a warmer period during the decades when the slave trade was most active appear more developed today.
The slave trade is important if we want to understand Africa’s modern development. Higher participation in the trade is associated with worse modern economic outcomes, including lower GDP per capita, lower trust, and greater ethnic fractionalisation (Nunn 2008; Nunn and Wantchekon 2011; Whatley and Gillezeau 2011). Despite the numerous studies linking modern outcomes to participation in the slave trade, there has been very little empirical analysis of the mechanisms affecting the supply of slaves from Africa.
See full Article: http://www.voxeu.org/article/climate-ecosystem-resilience-and-slave-trade
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