Author
Abstract
During the Scramble for Africa, European colonization relied on private concessionary companies that established distinctive institutional frameworks. This paper provides new empirical evidence suggesting that colonial corporate governance produced divergent long-run development trajectories. I examine two comparable corporations that exploited the Central African Copperbelt: the Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) in the Belgian Congo and the Rhokana Corporation (RC) in Northern Rhodesia. The UMHK’s “Labour Stabilization Programs” incentivized permanent family resettlement, fostering community stability and urban agglomeration economies, policies absent at the RC. Using two spatial regression discontinuity designs, I show that the UMHK concession generated higher urbanization rates and persistent improvements in wealth, education, and health outcomes today, along with enduring positive effects on women’s empowerment and decision-making power over household spending. In contrast, I find no comparable evidence for the RC, and a spatial difference-in-discontinuities analysis indicates the developmental divergence is driven by UMHK’s labour policies.