Essays on slavery, intergenerational mobility and the persistence of distrust and inequality

Abstract

Although it has been more than 100 years since slavery has been abolished in the Americas, its impact is still being felt up until present-day. Some former slave colonies are currently underdeveloped, and some are among the world’s poorest nations, such as Haiti. Thus, understanding the long term impacts of historical events such as slavery on American societies is an important area of research. Over decades several scholars have provided competing theories for differences in per capita income across countries. Some argue that geographical factors such as climate, natural resources, soil quality, topography and the disease environment can explain cross-country income differences. Sachs and Warner (1995, 1997), for example, suggest that tropical and landlocked location affect productivity and in turn growth and development. Others claim that the reasons why some countries are rich and others poor is because of differences in policies that foster economic growth such as openness to trade.