The Chagossians’ long struggle

In the previous post, I mentioned the inability of descendants of slaves to attain the same level of material and educational attainment as the average Mauritian, even after many generations. Only four decades ago, there is another group of people who were uprooted from their home and dumped on the streets of Port-Louis. They are the Chagossians. Yesterday, they won another legal battle in the British courts, giving them the right to return home. In his ruling, Lord Justice Sedley had this to say

Few things are more important to a social group than its sense of belonging, not only to each other but to a place. What has sustained peoples in exile, from Babylon onwards, has been the possibility of one day returning home.

The Slave Trade in Mauritius

The history of Mauritius is inextricably linked to the slave trade. For the whole of the 18th century, slaves were imported from neighbouring Mozambique and Madagascar into what was then known as Isle de France. In 1806, the slave population reached 78 000, an estimated 85% of the population, for an island no more than 720 square miles. When the British took over in 1810, slave import was effectively banned and the slave ‘market’ turned into a local one, until the abolition of slavery in 1835. Slaves changed masters via openbid ascending (English) auctions; males were sold separately, women and their children were sold as a bundle. Armed with a uniquely detailed data set gathered from notarial acts on auction sales over the period 1825-1835, economists Chenny, Dionne, StAmour and Vencatachellum ask two questions in two separate papers. Firstly, was the market for slaves in Mauritius characterised by imperfect information, whereby sellers (masters) had more information about the productivity of the slaves than potential buyers? Secondly, how did the British take-over of 1810 and rumours of abolition affect the market for slaves?

Choosing the Future

Freakonomics author, Steven Levitt has two touching posts on (1) selective abortion and (2) selective adoption. He faces us with a stark dilemma: what would one do if a prenatal test reveals that one’s baby would be born with Down’s syndrome? Should one refuse to adopt a sick or disable child? Every good parent will no doubt raise to the challenge. He/she will get personal instances of happiness as the child learns to cope with the condition and overcome the handicap. Yet, 90% of people who are told that their expected child will have Down’s syndrome choose to abort. Studies reveal that most people who, in the course of their life, become disable, are, in a short space of time, no more ‘unhappier’ than when they were able-bodied. Then why should people born with a disability be any unhappier?

Public Spending

On Monday, I gave a talk on the Mauritian economy to female union leaders of governmental and parastatal organisations. When it came to public finances, I showed them the graph below, which compares the components of public spending of six countries: Denmark, New Zealand, Portugal, Chile, Tunisia and Mauritius. These countries are a diverse bunch, but are all successful, open economies. The question I asked was: “why do we in Mauritius need to devote 42% of public funds paying civil servants and 14% paying interest on debt, while in New Zealand they spend only 25% and 5% respectively?” I realised that it could be tricky to warn union leaders about overstaffing in the public sector, and to avoid having eggs pelted at me, I pretended that this is the sort of question that would inevitably come from some visiting IMF experts (bless them)!

Long Absence

Well, I am back from a long spell of blog inactivity. I have been busy building a house, from which I have learned quite a few economics lessons (coming soon). The house is almost complete now, with bits and pieces left here and there. This (together with teaching) took most of my time in January and February. My prolonged silence in subsequent months was the result of a kind of reverse rational addiction: the more I stay away from reading blogs and doing intelligent stuff, the harder it becomes to get back to them. Procrastination time is now over and I am now back to doing research and blogging.