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...

We combine the date-of-observation found in Murdock’s Ethnographic Atlas and a newly-constructed dataset on the date-of-colonization at the ethnic-group level to study the effects of the duration of colonial rule on a variety of political, economic, and social characteristics of ethnic groups...

I trace the impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade on the evolution of political authority in West Africa. I present econometric evidence showing that the trans-Atlantic slave trade increased absolutism in pre-colonial West Africa by approximately 17% to 35%, while reducing democracy and...

In this paper, we present the role of information communications and the Internet, as tools for the deployment of innovative applications for Africa, showing that this is not an African matter since the same phenomenon took place fairly recently in the OECD countries. We then describe the work...

In this paper, we present the role of information communications and the Internet, as tools for the deployment of innovative applications for Africa, showing that this is not an African matter since the same phenomenon took place fairly recently in the OECD countries. We then describe the work...

In this article the author seeks to explain the reasons backing the success of mobile technology in money transfers comparing Africa and Latin America.