Pre-colonial ethnic institutions and contemporary African development
Journal
Econometrica
Subject
Economics
Publishing details
Authors / Editors
Michalopoulos S;Papaioannou E
Biographies
Publication Year
2013
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 also holds within pairs of adjacent ethnic homelands with different legacies of pre-colonial political institutions.
Keywords
Africa; Ethnicities; Development; Institutions
Available on ECCH
No
