Several recent studies have argued that human capital formation among elites is crucial to economic development – for example, resulting in a system of trading cities and merchants who coordinated long-distance trade...
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Year: 2021
As vaccines for Covid-19 become more readily available, the next challenge will be ensuring uptake of vaccines in developing countries. Despite numerous improvements in health technology and access, health interventions in developing...
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Colonizer Identity and Free Trade in Africa It has often been claimed that the structure of export trade between Africa and Europe during the colonial period depended on the colonizer's identity, with...
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Based on what we know about Uganda’s pre-colonial and colonial history (Reid 2017), how much inequality should we expect? Uganda’s economy was predicated on smallholder production of export crops – cotton and...
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The Persistent Influence of Chiefs Our focus on chiefs, as opposed to the formal state, is a notable departure from much of the current literature on the determinants of corruption. Even though...
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State capacity is important for economic development, but the economic history of state building is understudied and until recently, it disproportionately represented Western Europe and Western offshoots. In recent years, new research...
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The impact of colonialism on economic development has been a popular object of study across the social sciences. At the macro- and micro-level, scholars have linked colonial history to a variety of...
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Much research in economic history has demonstrated that precolonial institutions continue to influence contemporary African development. In a pioneering study, Michalopoulos & Papaioannou (2013) have argued that areas with centralized pre-colonial institutions...
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There has been renewed interest in the long-term effects of colonial-era Christian missionary activities on African economies today. Most of this work focuses on the long-run effects of missionary activities on...
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Research examining the origins and impact of colonial investments on African economic development is scarce, especially if we exclude the growing literature on the long-term educational, economic, and political effects of missionaries....
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Although it is undeniable that overall welfare was reduced because of colonialism, the evolution of some dimensions of welfare such as education, health or income has given rise to some debate. The...
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Studies investigating the impact of colonial institutions on African economic development have proliferated in recent decades. So far, much of the work has focused on either policies adopted in colonial capitals and...
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Historical events are fundamental determinants of economic performance (Allen 2011). However, until recently, research in quantitative economic history has mainly focused on today’s high- and middle-income economies. This lack of research is...
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