Research on African economic performance has often focused on the question of why Africa has underperformed other regions. The only available data on Africa’s long-run economic performance began in 1950, and showed...
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South Africa’s development path is often regarded as unusual in both global and regional context, although scholars disagree on when and why it diverged. Some have argued that South Africa’s exceptionalism was...
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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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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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The optimal way of using the proceeds from mineral discoveries continues to elude many developing countries. Because such discoveries can fuel rapid economic growth, one of the key challenges that emerge is...
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The African Long-term Inequality Trends, AFLIT, is a new research network promoting interdisciplinary and collaborative research on historical inequality in Africa. It consists of scholars based at Lund University, Wageningen University, University...
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Note: The original version of this blog post was published by African Arguments - Debating Ideas on 22/04/2020. The COVID-19 pandemic has reached Africa later than elsewhere, but it is clear...
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Long-run Effects of Forced Resettlement Under Apartheid South Africa's minority white population elected the Afrikaner-led National Party in 1948, marking the official start of the apartheid regime that would be in power...
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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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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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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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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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In his lecture, Professor Hopkins shines his light on ideological, methodological and topical trends in African economic history over the past 50 years. The full lecture will appear in the journal Economic...
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Africa is rising in Economic History. The discipline has seen impressive growth over the past decade. Africa has emerged to become a new frontier in research on the historical roots of global...
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Fiscal capacity and forced labor Ongoing scholarly debate about the connections between taxation, state building, and long-term economic development, has revitalized and globalized the study of historical tax systems (Bräutigam et al....
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As a landmark of ‘modern’ statecraft and nationhood, census-taking has been central in historical and sociological literature. Following in the footsteps of Foucault (2007) and Anderson (1991), many scholars have explored the...
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Climate change might worsen social inequity by widening gender gaps in human capital investment What is the impact of climate-induced health shocks on gender inequality? In almost every country in the...
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The efficient provision of public goods relies on a well-functioning bureaucracy. But in many developing countries, the public sector suffers from absenteeism and poor performance (Banerjee and Duflo 2006). Our research argues...
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Why do states establish formal institutional presence in certain locations rather than others? While classic works of comparative politics and historical sociology have touched on the connection between the spatial unevenness of...
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We are delighted to launch the AEHN’s new blog, Frontiers in African Economic History. The editorial team consists of Michiel de Haas, Kate Frederick (both Wageningen University) and Felix Meier zu Selhausen...
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