What can we learn from studying intermarriage shares? The shares of intermarriages have long been used to study the salience of cleavages within societies (Kalmijn 1998). Looking at marriage patterns gives us...
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Year: 2019
Colonial settlement as a 'process' It is often claimed that the local conditions, such as the amounts of land and indigenous labour or the type of soil encountered by settlers in modern...
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From the 1920s, and especially from the 1950s, recorded mortality levels across tropical Africa fell substantially, contributing to exceptionally high rates of population growth (Frankema & Jerven 2014). While this broad trend...
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Why do colonial legacies matter today? Economists are increasingly convinced that history matters for economic development. Particularly widespread is the idea that former British colonies are today more prosperous, notably as a...
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African stock exchanges Despite the continued resurgence in African economic history, the output of business and corporate historiography on Africa’s financial infrastructure lags considerably behind the actual contribution of the financial sector...
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Formal education in Africa As education was the main reward missions used to lure Africans into Christianity, missionaries became the main provider of formal education on the continent particularly from the mid-19th...
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European settlement and African living standards Ongoing scholarly debate cites extractive colonial institutions as a root cause of Africa’s comparatively low economic development. The role of institutions is emphasized particularly in historical...
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A large body of research has identified a negative correlation between fertility levels and population densities in pre-industrial societies – past and present (Doveri 2000). Fertility declines as land becomes scarce. A...
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During the last half of the twentieth century, the total fertility rate in South Africa declined from 6 to nearly 3 children per woman, and the national government of South Africa established...
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One of the proximate causes of Africa’s poor growth performance – so the argument goes – is a government budget that favours patronage over growth-enhancing investments. African governments are thought to be...
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Trade Monopsonies and African Economic Development Under French colonial rule, trade monopsonies were often established to reduce prices paid to African agricultural producers below competitive prices and increase the profit margin of...
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