TY  - JOUR
AU  - Nunn, Nathan
AU  - Wantchekon, Leonard
TI  - The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14783
PY  - 2009
Y2  - March 2009
DO  - 10.3386/w14783
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14783
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14783.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Nathan Nunn
Department of Economics
Harvard University
1805 Cambridge St
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 617/496-4958
Fax: 617/495-8570
E-Mail: nnunn@fas.harvard.edu

Leonard Wantchekon
Department of Politics
Princeton University 
321 Bendheim Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
Tel: 609/258-6723
E-Mail: lwantche@princeton.edu
AB  - We investigate the historical origins of mistrust within Africa. Combining contemporary household survey data with historic data on slave shipments, we show that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the slave trade today exhibit less trust in neighbors, relatives, and their local government. We confirm that the relationship is causal by using the historic distance from the coast of a respondent's ancestors as an instrument for the intensity of the slave trade, while controlling for the individual's current distance from the coast. We undertake a number of falsification tests, all of which suggest that the necessary exclusion restriction is satisfied.  Exploiting variation among individuals who live in locations different from their ancestors, we show that most of the impact of the slave trade works through factors that are internal to the individual, such as cultural norms, beliefs, and values.
ER  -