Limited knowledge of African historical inequality trajectories hampers our understanding of inequality outcomes today and leads to a major omission in debates about global inequality. Economies in colonial Africa were characterized by a process of export-oriented commercialization. We hypothesize that this process itself, the capital intensity of the commodities produced, and the relative importance of European and Asian expatriates and settlers in the economy shaped heterogeneous inequality outcomes. We evaluate these hypotheses using 33 social tables from six predominately agricultural countries between 1914 and 1969. Social tables capture income across the full distribution, aggregated in classes. We assess and improve the commensurability of the different social tables. We then apply different inequality metrics, and find that Gini and Theil coefficients and Inequality Extraction Ratios rose over time. Gini coefficients moved in conjunction with the real value of commodity exports per capita. Using Theil decompositions, we observe a trade-off between inequality among African classes on the one hand, and among non-Africans and between races on the other. Whenever present, non-Africans captured a large share of the export profits. Inequality patterns towards the end of the period suggest that capital-intensive commodities were associated with higher levels of inequality in the agricultural sector.

中文翻译：

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非洲殖民地的收入不平等和出口导向型商业化：来自六个国家的证据

对非洲历史不平等轨迹的了解有限，阻碍了我们对当今不平等结果的理解，并导致关于全球不平等的辩论出现重大遗漏。非洲殖民地经济的特点是出口导向型商业化进程。我们假设这一过程本身、所生产商品的资本密集度以及欧洲和亚洲侨民和定居者在经济中的相对重要性塑造了异质的不平等结果。我们使用 1914 年至 1969 年间来自六个以农业为主的国家的 33 个社会表格来评估这些假设。社会表格记录了整个分配中按类别汇总的收入。我们评估并改进不同社交表的可通约性。然后，我们应用不同的不平等指标，发现基尼系数和泰尔系数以及不平等提取率随着时间的推移而上升。基尼系数与人均商品出口实际价值一起变化。使用泰尔分解，我们一方面观察到非洲阶级之间不平等之间的权衡，另一方面观察到非非洲人之间以及种族之间不平等之间的权衡。无论何时，非非洲人都获得了出口利润的很大一部分。该时期末的不平等模式表明，资本密集型商品与农业部门的不平等程度较高有关。