Do Colonialism and Slave Trade Still Affect Modern Economic Performance

Abstract

This paper makes two contributions to the research on colonialism, slave trade, and Africa’s current underdevelopment. First, it proposes empirical evidence suggesting that both the cultural channel and the institutional channel, which are discussed in the literature, are not enough to fully explain the negative effect of colonialism and slave trade on current economic performance. Second, it contributes to the theoretical and empirical understanding by elaborating on two possible additional channels: the accumulation of capital channel and the demographic channel.