The long run impacts of slavery in Colombia

Almost wrote “Columbia”. That is going to be a persistent problem.

Anyways, a new paper from Acemoglu, García-Jimeno, and Robinson:

We investigate the impact of slavery on long-run development in Colombia. Our identification strategy compares municipalities that had gold mines during the 17th and 18th centuries to neighboring municipalities without gold mines. Gold mining was a major source of demand for slave labor during colonial times, and all colonial gold mines are now depleted. We find that the historical presence of slavery is associated with increased poverty and reduced school enrollment, vaccination coverage and public good provision. We also find that slavery is associated with higher contemporary land inequality.

8 Responses

  1. They assert that the gold mines had no effect on modern day poverty, other than through slavery, presumably because they were quickly depleted. They spend one sentence defending this:

    “If so, because these colonial mines were depleted long ago, any differences in outcomes between pairs of neighboring municipalities can be plausibly attributed to the difference in the incidence of slavery between them.”

    AER, here we come.