Working Paper: NBER ID: w18224
Authors: Stelios Michalopoulos; Elias Papaioannou
Abstract: We investigate the role of deeply-rooted pre-colonial ethnic institutions in shaping comparative regional development within African countries. We combine information on the spatial distribution of ethnicities before colonization with regional variation in contemporary economic performance, as proxied by satellite images of light density at night. We document a strong association between pre-colonial ethnic political centralization and regional development. This pattern is not driven by differences in local geographic features or by other observable ethnic-specific cultural and economic variables. The strong positive association between pre-colonial political complexity and contemporary development obtains also within pairs of adjacent ethnic homelands with different legacies of pre-colonial political institutions.
Keywords: Precolonial Institutions; African Development; Ethnicity; Political Centralization
JEL Codes: N17; O43; Z1
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| precolonial political centralization (F54) | regional development (R58) |
| precolonial political centralization (F54) | light density at night (Q49) |
| regional development (R58) | light density at night (Q49) |
| precolonial political centralization (F54) | contemporary economic performance (P17) |
| ethnic political complexity (F55) | regional development (R58) |
| precolonial institutions (F54) | contemporary economic performance (P17) |