Reparations to Africa for the Slave Trades—An Hedonic Damages Approach to Calculating the Value of Lost Freedom

There have been numerous attempts to estimate the value of economic losses from slavery and the slave trade. This paper considers the value of the loss of freedom from slavery and the slave trades in sub-Saharan Africa, the region from which it has been conservatively estimated more than 15 million men, women, and children were forced into bondage beginning as early as the ninth century and lasting until the twentieth century. The approach we use applies the forensic economic concept of hedonic damages as the valuation method to estimate the value of lost freedom of the enslaved. Using the concept of the value of a statistical life (VSL), and relating it to estimates of per capita GDP in the major slave trading economies in various time periods, the value of lost freedom of enslaved Africans is estimated for the Trans-Atlantic, Trans-Saharan, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean slave trades. The damage estimates, excluding interest, are $3.2 to $3.3 trillion for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, $1.0 to $1.4 trillion for the Trans-Saharan trade, $347 to $378 billion for the Red Sea trade, and $278 to $740 billion for the Indian Ocean trade. We discuss whether our analysis supports a claim for reparations, and if so, who should pay and to whom reparations should be paid.