Blame modern decisions, not just ancient history, for economic inequality

Persistence studies are all the rage in economics – using clever maths to show that events in the distant past drive political or economic outcomes today. One well-known example argued that Britain’s superior growth to France as late as 1800 was shaped by… the collapse of the western Roman empire a millennium before. Here, the collapse saw the population de-urbanise, while in France they remained in Roman-era towns that lasted. So when Britain’s cities re-emerged they were in places better suited to growth in the run-up to the Industrial Revolution.
Interesting stuff. But persistence studies also breed something dangerous: determinism. If ancient history is so influential, what hope do we have to shape our destiny? Which is why I love a new paper by Lukas Althoff and Hugo Reichardt, examining the lasting economic impact of slavery. Their findings look like the normal persistence story: black Americans whose ancestors were enslaved before the civil war have had significantly worse economic outcomes ever since, compared with black Americans whose forefathers were free – even in 2023, descendants of enslaved people had incomes $11,620 lower than other black Americans.
But this is a story about continuing choices too. Why? Because the direct effect of your ancestors being enslaved fades by 1940. What drives the lasting disadvantage is that those whose ancestors were enslaved were more likely to live in states that went on suppressing black Americans even after the abolition of slavery – via infamous Jim Crow laws, which lasted in southern states until the 1960s.
History and slavery especially, casts a long shadow, but more recent choices do shape – for good and ill – our political and economic present.
Torsten Bell is Labour MP for Swansea West and author of Great Britain? How We Get Our Future Back