Colonial history | Economic Research Southern Africa

Keyword: Colonial history

Call for Application: An ERSA Research Workshop: Longitudinal Data in African History

The study of African economic history has reached a tipping point. ...

Call for Application

Call for Application: Training Workshop for Graduate Students: South African Economic H...

South African economic history is undergoing a mini-revolution. Ass...

Call for Application

Call for Papers: An ERSA Research Workshop: The fiscal history of Sub-Saharan Africa

The public finances of African governments in the colonial and post...

Submit paper: 4 May 2015

Call for Papers

Reigniting economic growth: Lessons from three centuries of data

We estimate that since 1701, South Africa has experienced 163 years...

Edward Kerby, Roy Havemann

Working Paper

The political economy of palm oil expansion and deforestation in Indonesia

This paper studies the interactions between political and economic ...

Nunung Nuryartono, Krisztina Kis-Katosz, Elías Cisnerosy

Working Paper

Late colonial antecedents of modern democracy

Some of the most contested questions in political science and polit...

Martin Rode, Christian Bjørnskov

Working Paper

The origin of extractive states in Africa: The case of the British Cape Colony, 1834-1909

The majority of African states continue to be regarded as extractiv...

Johan Fourie, Abel Gwaindepi

Working Paper

The measurement of institutions and instability in Democratic Republic of Congo, 1880-2010

This paper introduces a new database for Property Rights, Political...

Alain P. Bala

Policy Brief

Evolution of institutions in Ghana and implications for economic growth

This report discusses the evolution of institutions and compares th...

Emmanuel M. Letete, George Agbenyo, Wisdom Akpalu, Mare Sarr

Working Paper

Intergenerational mobility during industrial take-off

Using a novel dataset of genealogical records, we make the first at...

Johan Fourie, Jeanne Cilliers

Policy Brief

Why local context matters: de jure and de facto property rights in colonial South Africa

For economic transactions, including debt transactions, to occur in...

Johan Fourie, Christie Swanepoel

Working Paper

Social mobility during South Africa’s industrial take-off

In the absence of historical income or education data, the change i...

Johan Fourie, Jeanne Cilliers

Working Paper

What church records can tell us about economic development

Because colonial sources often lack adequate information about the ...

ERSA

Workshop

Growth (and segregation) by rail: How the railways shaped Colonial South Africa

The railway played a large part in late nineteenth century and earl...

Johan Fourie, Alfonso Herranz-Loncan

Working Paper

“Impending ruin” or “remarkable wealth”? The role of private credit markets in a settle...

Credit markets develop hand in hand with a market economy. Pre-indu...

Johan Fourie, Christie Swanepoel

Working Paper

The Cape of Perfect Storms: Colonial Africa’s first financial crash, 1788-1793

This paper investigates the causes and consequences of colonial Afr...

Roy Havemann, Johan Fourie

Working Paper

An ERSA Research Workshop: The fiscal history of Sub-Saharan Africa

The public finances of African governments in the colonial and post...

Submit paper: 4 May 2015

ERSA

Workshop

An ERSA Research Workshop: Longitudinal Data in African History

The study of African economic history has reached a tipping point. ...

Submit paper: 4 May 2015

ERSA

Workshop

When selection trumps persistence: The lasting effect of missionary education in South ...

To estimate the long-term, persistent effects of missionary educati...

Johan Fourie, Christie Swanepoel

Working Paper

The spatial persistence of population and wealth during apartheid: comparing the 1911 a...

This article examines the spatial distribution of people and wealth...

Waldo F. Krugell

Working Paper

An economic model of the apartheid state

Rather than a rigid racial ideology, it is argued that South Africa...

Anton D. Lowenberg

Working Paper

Training Workshop for Graduate Students: South African Economic History

South African economic history is undergoing a mini-revolution. Ass...

Submit paper: 10 October 2014

ERSA

Workshop

The missing people: Accounting for indigenous populations in Cape Colonial history

Because information about the livelihoods of indigenous groups is o...

Johan Fourie, Erik Green

Working Paper

Savings and economic growth: A historical analysis of the relationship between savings ...

The sub-optimal savings propensity in South Africa the past three d...

John W. M. Mwamba, Lorraine Greyling, Grietjie Verhoef

Working Paper

Race, gender and growth of the affluent middle class in post-apartheid South Africa

This paper examines the development of the middle class in post-apa...

Justin Visagie

Working Paper

The quantitative Cape: Notes from a new Histriography of the Dutch Cape Colony

The digitisation and transcription of rich archival sources and the...

Johan Fourie

Working Paper

A country of migrants: Advances in South African economic history

South Africa is a country of migrants. From the Bantu migration, th...

ERSA

Workshop

Pearls worth Rds4000 or less: Reinterpreting eighteenth century sumptuary laws at the Cape

Governor Ryk Tulbagh promulgated sumptuary laws at the Cape in 1755...

Stan Du Plessis

Working Paper

Heights and development in a Cash-Crop Colony: Living standards in Ghana, 1870-1980

While Ghana is a classic case of economic growth in an agricultural...

Jörg Baten, Gareth Austin, Alexander Moradi

Working Paper

The economics of apartheid

The Economics of Apartheid Apartheid remains a contentious issue. I...

ERSA

Workshop

Where you live matters: Urbanisation and labour markets outcomes

Policy Paper 17 Given apartheid’s legacy of irrational spatial plan...

Roy Havemann, Marna Kearney

Policy Paper

Ethnic reunion and cultural affinity

Ethnic reunion is the propensity of tourists to travel to regions w...

Maria Santana-Gallego, Johan Fourie

Working Paper

A history with evidence: Income inequality in the Dutch Cape Colony

The arrival of European settlers at the Cape in 1652 marked the beg...

Johan Fourie, Dieter von Fintel

Working Paper

A theory of colonial goverance

This paper considers conditions of optimality in a co-optive strate...

Johannes W. Fedderke, Julius A. Agbor, Nicola Viegi

Working Paper

Ship traffic and the economy of the Cape Colony: 1652-1793

Most historians regard the Cape Colony of the seventeenth and eight...

Willem H. Boshoff, Johan Fourie

Working Paper

Colonial data and economic history research in South Africa

Colonial data and economic history research in South Africa –...

ERSA

Workshop