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Summaries

Tax Bargaining, Fiscal Contracts, and Fiscal Capacity in Ghana: A Long-Term Perspective
Prince Young Aboagye and Ellen Hillbom - October 21, 2020 in Frontiers in African Economic History

In 2016, the average tax revenue as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was 26.15 percent for OECD countries, but only 15.47 percent for Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Some scholars attribute SSA...
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The Rise and Fall of the Bureaucratic Bourgeoisie: Public Sector Employees and Economic Privilege in Postcolonial Kenya and Tanzania
Rebecca Simson - June 22, 2020 in Frontiers in African Economic History

In the 1960s, one of Africa’s economic and political predicaments was thought to be its overdeveloped public sector elite, which dwarfed the few members of a genuinely African commercial elite. Scholars argued...
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Labour market formation in post-slavery Africa: Ruanda-Urundi migrants and Buganda’s low wage economy
Michiel de Haas - June 1, 2020 in Frontiers in African Economic History

Introduction Analyzing post-slavery labour markets in sub-Saharan Africa, economic historians have stressed the abundance of land relative to labour (e.g. Austin 2019). In such conditions, if an employer wanted prospective labourers to...
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Covid-19 and African History: Editor’s Introduction to the Virtual JAH Special Issue “Epidemics and Public Health”
Shane Doyle - May 16, 2020 in Frontiers in African Economic History

Currently Africa, accounting in May 2020 for only 0.8% of confirmed cases and 0.6% of deaths worldwide, is marginal to global analysis of coronavirus. This situation seems likely to change, given the...
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Long-Run Effects of Forced Resettlement: Evidence from Apartheid South Africa
Martin Abel - March 3, 2020 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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From Market to Exchange: Early Regulation and Social Organisation on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, 1887-1892
Mariusz Lukasiewicz - July 22, 2019 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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Labour Control and the Establishment of Profitable Settler Agriculture in Colonial Kenya, c. 1920-45
Maria Fibaek and Erik Green - June 3, 2019 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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The Land–Labour Hypothesis in a Settler Economy: Wealth, Labour and Household Composition on the South African Frontier
Jeanne Cilliers and Erik Green - April 26, 2019 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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The Long-Term Effects of Extractive Institutions: Evidence from Trade Policies in Colonial French Africa
Federico Tadei - January 30, 2019 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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Financing the African Colonial State: Fiscal Capacity Building and Forced Labor
Marlous van Waijenburg - October 21, 2018 in Frontiers in African Economic History

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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If you or your organisation would like to know more about the activities of the AEHN and how best to support these, please contact us for more information.

The network is currently funded by:

  • Economic and Environmental History, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
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