Working Paper: NBER ID: w25278
Authors: Stelios Michalopoulos; Elias Papaioannou
Abstract: As Africa's role on the global stage is rising, so does the need to understand the shadow of history on the continent's economy and polity. We discuss recent works that shed light on Africa's colonial and precolonial legacies. The emerging corpus is remarkably interdisciplinary. Archives, ethnographic materials, georeferenced censuses, surveys, and satellite imagery are some of the sources often combined to test influential conjectures put forward in African historiography. Exploiting within-country variation and employing credible, albeit mostly local, identification techniques, this recent literature has uncovered strong evidence of historical continuity as well as instances of rupture in the evolution of the African economy. The exposition proceeds in reverse chronological order. Starting from the colonial period, which has been linked to almost all of Africa's post-independence maladies, we first review works that uncover the lasting legacies of colonial investments in infrastructure and human capital and quantify the role of various extractive institutions, such as indirect rule and oppression associated with concessionary agreements. Second, we discuss the long-lasting impact of the "Scramble for Africa" which led to ethnic partitioning and the creation of artificial modern states. Third, we cover studies on the multi-faceted legacy of the slave trades. Fourth, we analyze the contemporary role of various precolonial, ethnic-specific, institutional and social traits, such as political centralization. We conclude by offering some thoughts on what we view as open questions.
Keywords: African development; historical legacies; colonialism; precolonial institutions; economic outcomes
JEL Codes: N00; N10; N77; N87; N97; O10; O43; O55
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Colonial investments in infrastructure (H54) | Contemporary development indicators (O10) |
| Colonial governance structures (F54) | Authoritarianism and weakened state capacity (O17) |
| Colonial governance structures (F54) | Lower levels of political participation (D72) |
| Colonial governance structures (F54) | Higher levels of authoritarian attitudes (D70) |
| Historical slave trades (N73) | Lower levels of trust and social cohesion (Z13) |
| Lower levels of trust and social cohesion (Z13) | Economic collaboration and development (O29) |