A chat with Leonard Wantchekon about the Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa

GrowthChat is a podcast on the social and cultural journey of humankind, hosted by Marco Lecci and Sascha O. Becker.  In this episode we chat with Leonard Wantchekon about his paper​ "The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa”. Leonard and his co-author, Nathan Nunn, study why the current differences in trust levels within Africa can be traced back to the transatlantic and Indian Ocean slave trades. Combining contemporary individual-level survey data with historical data on slave shipments by ethnic group, they find that individuals whose ancestors were heavily raided during the slave trade are less trusting today.