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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Keyword: Africa
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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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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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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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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This chapter describes the external slave trades out of Africa. It discusses how the slave trades developed over time, and factors that contributed to the growth of the slave trades out of...
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Africa is the world’s poorest region in terms of income and material living standards. This chapter re-evaluates and explains how poverty rates are measured and how they are made comparable over time...
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The African Commodity Trade Database (ACTD 2.0) aims to stimulate and deepen research on African and global economic history. The database provides export series at the commodity level from all African countries for more than two centuries of African trade (1790-2020). The data from the ACTD 2.0 is freely available as long as reference is made to: Frankema, Ewout & Meier zu Selhausen, Felix (2026). ‘Africa’s Mineral Transition in Long-Term Perspective,’ AEHN Working Paper No. 86, African Economic History Network.
ACTD 2.0
Prices, quantities and values, 1790-2020: ACTD_2_Frankema_Meier_zu_Selhausen_Sept2026
Supplemental Material
– Notes on the ACTD: ACTD_2_Frankema_Meier_zu_Selhausen_Notes
– British Customs Records, 1697-1808, unprocessed: ACTD_1697t1808_raw_data
Contact and Acknowledgements
The data was collected by the Economic and Environmental History Group at Wageningen University and the Economic and Social Group at Utrecht University. The construction of this database was made possible by the generous funding from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) AMMODO Science Award for Ewout Frankema’s project: “African Trade in Historical Perspective: From the ‘Commercial Transition’ to the ‘Mineral Transition’ and Beyond”. Frankema and Meier zu Selhausen gratefully acknowledge Denis Cogneau (PSE) and Yannick Dupraz (CNRS) for the collection of the French empire’s component of the ACTD 2.0 database.
For comments and suggestions please contact Felix Meier zu Selhausen ([email protected])
Historically, natural resources such as coal and iron played a critical role in the industrialisation of the western world. Yet, more recently resource rich countries, including many in Africa, have performed worse...
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About 30% of people in sub-Saharan Africa have access to grid electricity, the lowest of any major region in the world. Per head, Africans consume only one fifth the energy of the...
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