The trans-Atlantic slave trade is considered by many to have been a major shock to Africa, one that transformed African economies and contributed to long-term poverty. In this paper I combine data from the Transatlantic Slave Trade Database and the Anglo-African Trade Statistics to document some...

Despite the many reasons to expect sluggish wage adjustment, recent evidence suggests that real wages are quite procyclical (growing more rapidly during economic expansions than during recessions) and that this wage procyclicality pertains even to workers who stay with the same employer. One...

In the last 15 years, economists and economic historians have argued that Africa has undergone a "reversal of fortune" and that ethnic fragmentation is a significant cause of Africa's underdevelopment. In this article, we join these narratives by arguing that the transatlantic slave trade...