We create a novel commodity trade database to trace Africa’s mineral transition across 1850-2020. How did the growth of mineral exports affect (pre-)colonial specialisation in tropical cash-crops, the mainstay of millions of...
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JEL Code: N
Economic History
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...
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The lands surrounding the historical homeland borders in Africa are notoriously linked to conflict and underdevelopment. With half of Africa currently living within 30 km of a homeland border, the borderlands are...
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South Africa represents a paradigmatic case in international literature on racial discrimination, illustrating a deeply institutionalised system that affected all aspects of daily life. Black, Coloured, and Asian populations were systematically relegated...
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In recent years, German colonialism has received growing public attention - a history long overshadowed by the World Wars. Due to its short-lived character, a long-term comparative view of German colonialism has...
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I study the impacts of exposure to one of Africa’s largest circular migration flows using an arbitrary border within Mozambique that, from 1893 to 1942, separated areas where young men were either...
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We investigate the well-being of urban workers in Angola under colonialism. Using a newly compiled dataset derived from archival and secondary sources, we construct welfare ratios for both skilled and unskilled workers...
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This paper provides the first quantitative assessment of living standards in Angola during the colonial period, with a specific focus on the Companhia de Diamantes de Angola (Diamang), the largest and most...
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Institutions of justice, like prisons, can be used to serve economic and other extra- judicial interests, with lasting deleterious effects. We study the effects on incarceration when prisoners are used primarily as...
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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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