Africa’s historic slave trades and innovation in a connected world

Abstract

This research investigates the long-run effect on innovation in Africa of the historic African slave trades, which resulted in a forced depletion of Africa’s 19th century population by half. We argue that a country’s level of slave exports during the historic African slave trades is inversely related to its innovation performance. Empirical analysis of two independent datasets at the country and firm level matched with slave export data highlights the statistically significant effect of traumatic historical shocks from slavery on innovation. In study 1, we analyze 269 panel-data observations from 34 African countries and show that the main effect is contingent on the country’s global connectedness. In study 2, we utilize cross-sectional data on 3,541 firms. These findings elaborate on the mechanisms that transmit historical trauma to the contemporary innovation characteristics of nations. Moreover, this study highlights the potential hazards of global connectedness for communities that experienced historical traumatic shocks.