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Colonial agricultural estates and rural development in twentieth-century Mexico Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Luz Marina Arias, Diana Flores-Peregrina
This study documents that municipalities in central Mexico closer in the past to an agricultural estate (hacienda) are associated with higher literacy and lower poverty throughout the twentieth cen...
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Mild Arabica coffee trade at a time of market regulation Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Andrea Montero-Mora, Marc Badia-Miró
This paper explores the dynamics of mild coffee trade during the term of the International Coffee Agreement, focusing on Costa Rica as a case study. We aimed to verify the influence of the agreemen...
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Like the swing of the pendulum: The history of government-sponsored rural settlements in São Paulo, Brazil (1820s–1920s) Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Bruno Gabriel Witzel de Souza
ABSTRACT This paper studies the history of government-sponsored rural settlements in the province/state of São Paulo, Brazil, as a pendular movement, whose points of reversion depended on the interests of a landowning elite to obtain labour for newly expanding plantations from the 1820s to the 1920s. Faltering infrastructure and ill-defined property rights over public lands were persistent constraints
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The sins of the church: The long-term impacts of Christian missionary praxis on HIV and sexual behaviour in Zambia Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-09-15 Michael Chanda Chiseni
ABSTRACT This study examines the long-term effect of Christian missionary exposure on HIV infection and related sexual behaviour in Zambia. I use distance to a historical missionary church and health facility as proxies for missionary exposure. I constructed a geocoded data set combining information on the historical locations of churches and missionary health centres with contemporary individual-level
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Profits and inequality during an export boom. Evidence from tax records in Lima, Peru Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-09-04 Luis Felipe Zegarra
ABSTRACT Some studies have shown that inequality increased in pre-1930 Latin America as the economy and foreign trade grew. Others have shown that there was no clear relationship between economic growth and inequality. The information on nineteenth-century Peru is useful to estimate income inequality during a period of rapid economic growth. This article estimates the distribution of profits in Lima
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Child labour, Africa’s colonial system, and coercion: The case of the Portuguese colonies, 1870–1975 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-08-21 Pedro Vaz Goulart
ABSTRACT Labour studies in the African colonial period are facing a revival, but literature on the role and working conditions of children remains over-generalized. At the same time, child labour has played a central role in economic activities in Africa, and it still does. This article contributes to filling this gap by studying Portuguese colonial Africa as a narrative of tension between labour market
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The colonial gap: An analysis of income distribution in the Port of Dakar, 1911–1940 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Daniel Castillo Hidalgo
ABSTRACT This study presents new empirical evidence on the structure of income of African workers in the Port of Dakar between 1911 and 1940. It provides a systematic series of public wages earned by the African and European workforce in a colonial seaport. This series includes income structure by skill tier of public employees and labourers employed at the port. Did wage structure evolve according
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The economic response of the Israeli government to a rapid influx of immigrants by the founding of the state, 1948–1953: Expansionary fiscal policy and rationing Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-07-12 Andrew Schein
ABSTRACT Israel was founded in 1948, and immediately afterwards, numerous immigrants came to the country. The Israeli government decided to provide provisions to these immigrants, along with trying to develop the country and investing in the military. This fiscal expansion was funded by seigniorage, and the government attempted to restrain inflation by imposing price controls and rationing food and
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The emergence of Brazil as a major world sugar and ethanol producer Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-06-09 Herbert S. Klein, Francisco Vidal Luna
ABSTRACT The production and export of sugar defined the colonial history of Brazil. It was here that the first modern slave based plantation system was created in America. Up through the end of the 17th century it was the dominant Atlantic producer of sugar. Although production continued to grow it was replaced in world markets in the 18th century by West Indian growers and was late to modernize in
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The development of colonial health care provision in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire: ca. 1900–55 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-05-26 Arlinde C.E. Vrooman
ABSTRACT Colonial administrations introduced various social infrastructures in Africa. This paper analyses and compares the development of colonial governments' health care provision and policies in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire from circa 1900 to 1955. Using qualitative and quantitative information from colonial reports, a new dataset captures the development of four factors relevant to these aims: health
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Political economy of development in the Arab republics: The state and socio-economic coalitions Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-05-25 Shimaa Hatab
ABSTRACT The question of socio-economic underdevelopment in the Arab region has been a perennial theme in development studies. While some scholars highlight the long durée effect of the Ottoman institutional legacy, others place the blame on the legacy of exploitation and expropriation of the colonial practices in the region. The article reaches beyond the two accounts (albeit departing from the colonial
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Manufacturing convergence in the Southern Cone: New evidence for the industrialization period Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-04-21 Cecilia Lara
ABSTRACT The objective of this paper is, on the basis of new evidence, to contribute to the analysis of the performance of the manufacturing industries in Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay during the state-led industrialization period and in comparison with a developed country. Specifically, this paper estimates the productivity gap between Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay relative to the United States in order
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Top incomes and the ruling class in Latin American history. Some theoretical and methodological challenges Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-03-30 Javier E. Rodríguez Weber
ABSTRACT Recent studies on income inequality have some characteristics that differentiate them from their earlier counterparts. The spotlight on high incomes has illuminated a new angle from which to view income inequality. Because estimates of top income shares can be used as a proxy for power inequality, they can enrich our comprehension of the role of the elite in Latin America’s economic development
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On Polish economic historiography in exile, 1945–1989 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-03-27 Damian Bębnowski
ABSTRACT This paper studies the main directions of development of Polish economic historiography in the country and in exile (in Great Britain and the United States) between 1945 and 1989. The analysis focuses on Polish economic history under various conditions (especially political ones) and the characteristics of selected research in exile (by Stanisław Swianiewicz, Władysław Wielhorski, Paweł Zaremba
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Living standards of copper mine labour in Chile and the Central African Copperbelt compared, 1920s to 1960s Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2023-02-10 Dácil Juif, Sergio Garrido
ABSTRACT Large-scale copper mining has been the main industry in Chile and the countries conforming the Central African Copperbelt for about one century. While a relatively extensive social science literature exists on the mostly adverse macroeconomic and institutional effects of a high reliance on mineral exports and revenues, we address the effects on the labour force employed by this industry. We
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Historical African ethnic class stratification systems and intergenerational transmission of education Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-09-20 Patricia Funjika
ABSTRACT This paper examines the role of precolonial class inequality systems in the intergenerational transmission of education processes amongst ethnic groups in Africa. Using ethnographic and household survey data from six African countries and grouping ethnic groups by the historical class system that existed within them, I observe variations in intergenerational persistence between them with varying
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Historical Christian missions and African societies today: Perspectives from economic history Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-09-14 Dozie Okoye
ABSTRACT Christian missionaries spread across the African continent in the early twentieth century following the expansion of colonial control, and invested in various areas of African societies in order to gain converts. This paper describes the recent literature in economic history that attempts to document and estimate the long-run impacts of Christian missions, including outstanding issues in the
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The development of the arid tropics: Lessons for economic history Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-08-11 Tirthankar Roy
ABSTRACT For centuries, the world’s tropical regions have been poorer than the temperate-zone countries. Does tropicality make the struggle for economic development harder? What do people caught up in the struggle do? The paper defines ‘tropicality’ as the combination of aridity and seasonal rainfall, and in turn, high inter- and intra-year variability in moisture influx. In the past, this condition
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Wealth inequality in interwar Poland Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-07-01 Marcin Wroński
ABSTRACT In 1923 Poland introduced an extraordinary wealth tax. I have used internal statistics of the Ministry of the Treasury to estimate wealth inequality in interwar Poland. This data source was not previously used by researchers. There are no estimates of wealth inequality in interwar Poland available in the literature. According to my estimates, the top 0.01% of wealth owners controlled 14.8%
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Wealth inequality in colonial Hispanic-America: Montevideo in the late eighteenth century Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-06-17 María Inés Moraes, Rebeca Riella, Carolina Vicario, Pablo Marmissolle
ABSTRACT There has recently been renewed interest among economic historians in preindustrial inequality, but there are still few case studies on wealth inequality in preindustrial Latin America, particularly involving colonial Spanish America before 1820. This paper presents a study of wealth inequality in Montevideo, an area of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in the late colonial period. This
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The political economy of development in Belize under the People’s United Party Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-06-10 Jacob Ferrell, Joel Wainwright
ABSTRACT The former British colony of Belize faces serious economic problems today, reflecting a collapse in tourism following COVID-19. To account for this fragility, a return to economic history is needed. We focus on two critical periods. First, we examine why the Belizean state was unable to form a developmental state in the period of the anticolonial movement and self-government (the 1950s–1960s)
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Human capital in Chile: The development of numeracy during the last 250 years Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-02-14 Manuel Llorca-Jaña, Javier Rivas, Ignacio Pérez, Juan Navarrete-Montalvo
ABSTRACT This paper studies the evolution of numeracy in Chile for cohorts born from the 1780s to the 1970s, providing a new series of this important indicator of human capital, essential to promote economic growth. This is the longest series currently available of any human capital indicator for Chile. It shows that numeracy was very low until the early twentieth century but that, contrary to traditional
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Economic inequality in Latin America and Africa, 1650 to 1950: Can a comparison of historical trajectories help to understand underdevelopment? Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-02-04 Stefania Galli, Dimitrios Theodoridis, Klas Rönnbäck
ABSTRACT The present article provides a comparative review of historical economic inequality in the two most unequal regions of the world, namely Latin America and Africa. This contribution examines novel studies that provide quantitative estimates of income and/or wealth inequality in the two continents in terms of sources, methods, results and interpretations, focusing on the period 1650 to 1950
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Comparative labour productivity in British and Russian manufacturing, circa 1908 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2022-01-18 Nikita Lychakov, Dmitrii Saprykin, Nadia Vanteeva
ABSTRACT Using data from official manufacturing censuses, we compare labour productivity in the UK and the Russian Empire around 1908 in the industries in which medium- and large-size enterprises predominated. We find that Russia’s labour productivity was 75.3 or 57.4% of the British level, depending on whether we include or exclude Russia’s large and highly productive spirits industry. Russia’s productivity
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The missing boys: Understanding the unbalanced sex ratio in South Africa, 1894–2011 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-17 Francisco J. Marco-Gracia, Johan Fourie
ABSTRACT At the beginning of the twentieth century in South Africa, the sex ratio for black children under five years was one of the lowest ever recorded. Sex ratios also differed markedly by racial group. Those for white children remained almost invariable, with more boys than girls, while black children had a clear majority of girls, a situation that the literature has almost completely overlooked
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Indian guinée cloth, West Africa, and the French colonial empire 1826–1925: Colonialism and imperialism as agents of globalization Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-17 Toyomu Masaki
ABSTRACT This study focuses on the global trade of guinée cloth mainly produced in French India and exported to French West Africa from 1826 to 1925. The article first re-examines the guinée cloth and its role in the western Sahel. Second, it argues that the guinée produced in the French factories established in French India was costly but of poor quality. Consequently, a similar type of cloth made
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Why we shouldn’t measure women’s labour force participation in pre-industrial countries Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Joyce Burnette
ABSTRACT Labour force participation was designed to measure contemporary labour markets, and does a poor job of measuring work, particularly women’s work, in the past. When we measure labour force participation we ignore production for household use, ignore differences in the intensity of work, and assume a continuity of employment that did not characterize most historical work. Therefore, I suggest
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Gender equality, growth, and how a technological trap destroyed female work Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Jane Humphries, Benjamin Schneider
ABSTRACT Development economists have long studied the relationship between gender equality and economic growth. More recently, economic historians have taken an overdue interest. We sketch the pathways within the development literature that have been hypothesized as linking equality for women to rising incomes, and the reverse channels – from higher incomes to equality. We describe how the European
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Gender and settler labour markets: The marriage bar in colonial Zimbabwe Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Ushehwedu Kufakurinani
ABSTRACT This paper discusses the marriage bar in Southern Rhodesia’s labour market. It extends the analysis of the marriage bar: over and above restrictions to enter the labour market, white women in colonial Zimbabwe, over time, also faced restrictions in terms of their conditions of service once they had entered the market. Married women, for example, were not permitted into permanent employment
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Restating the case for women’s history in South Africa Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-11-09 Amy Rommelspacher
ABSTRACT In the West, women’s history arose amidst the women’s movements of the 1970s. In developing regions such as South Africa, however, the process was delayed and early interest in women was expressed by anthropologists and sociologists. In developing regions, researching, writing, and consuming history is a luxury. This puts more pressure on choosing what to research and write about. This essay
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New perspectives and sources of the history of banking in Latin America and Spain, nineteenth to twentieth centuries Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-09-22 Carlos Marichal, Guillermo Barragán
ABSTRACT The banking history of Latin America and Spain has emerged as a quite active field for comparative research in economics and history. To show the recent liveliness in the field and the many new sources available, the article begins with two sections that provide an overview of the banking history of many countries, as well as bibliographies and references to essential historical documents
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Borrower income and loan rates in the credit market of Lima Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-10-04 Luis Felipe Zegarra
ABSTRACT I analyse the effect of borrower income on loan rates in the credit market of Lima in 1840–65. I show that borrower income had a negative effect on interest rates. Borrower income influenced interest rates mostly through the impact on loan sizes: richer borrowers received larger loans and larger loans were associated with lower loan rates. The results are consistent with the influence of economies
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Macroeconomic history in South Africa: The South African Reserve Bank centennial special issue Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-09-03
(2021). Macroeconomic history in South Africa: The South African Reserve Bank centennial special issue. Economic History of Developing Regions: Vol. 36, The South African Reserve Bank Centenary, pp. 117-121.
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Professor Vishnu Padayachee, 1952–2021 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-09-03
(2021). Professor Vishnu Padayachee, 1952–2021. Economic History of Developing Regions: Vol. 36, The South African Reserve Bank Centenary, pp. 122-123.
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The growth and diversity of the Cape private capital market, 1892–1902 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-07-16
ABSTRACT The adoption of limited liability in the nineteenth century is considered to have boosted economic growth and expanded capital markets in Europe and North America. Despite similar legal changes in frontier markets such as South Africa, very few attempts have been made to analyse the economic effects thereof. After the Cape Joint Stock Company Act No. 25 of 1892 there was an upsurge in new
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The fuel of unparalleled recovery: Monetary policy in South Africa between 1925 and 1936 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-09-03
ABSTRACT The newly established South African Reserve Bank (SARB) was tasked to protect the currency by navigating the interwar gold standard, and, from March 1933, maintaining parity with the Pound Sterling. We find that South Africa’s exit from gold secured an unparalleled and rapid recovery from the Great Depression. South Africa’s exit was accompanied by an inextricable link of the SARB’s policy
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The evolution of central bank communication as experienced by the South Africa Reserve Bank Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-06-28 Gideon du Rand, Ruan Erasmus, Hylton Hollander, Monique Reid, Dawie van Lill
ABSTRACT Communication has evolved into a cornerstone of central bank design and policy implementation. The South African Reserve Bank has been proactive in this regard as well – most notably with the adoption of inflation targeting in 2001. Using novel text-mining techniques, we evaluate the communication of the SARB, as presented via public speeches and monetary policy committee (MPC) statements
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The South African small banks’ crisis of 2002/3 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-07-29
ABSTRACT Following the collapse of Saambou bank in February 2002, contagion rapidly spread amongst South African small and medium-sized banks. By the end of 2003, half of the country’s banks had deregistered. The paper constructs a unique monthly bank-level data set to show that the banks that failed were those with short-term liabilities from other financial institutions. An initial delay in providing
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South Africa’s 2003–2013 credit boom and bust: Lessons for macroprudential policy Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-07-12
ABSTRACT We evaluate South African financial stability policy from 2003 to 2013 – the country’s most significant credit boom and bust cycle. This cycle overlapped with both rising bank capital adequacy ratios and the global financial crisis of 2007/8. We use a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model to identify South African Reserve Bank (SARB) interventions and run counterfactual policy scenarios
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How accurate are the prices in the British colonial Blue Books? Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-08-19 Tom Westland
ABSTRACT Despite the widespread use of the British colonial Blue Books as a statistical source, there has been little investigation of their reliability. This article compares retail price reports in the Blue Books with annual averages constructed from weekly market reports published in four colonial African newspapers. It finds that the Blue Books can sometimes be an unreliable guide to staple prices
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Factor endowments, vent for surplus and involutionary process in rural developing economies Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-08-18 Montserrat López Jerez
ABSTRACT This article seeks to provide a new analytical framework based on factor endowments to understand growth in rural economies without structural transformation. More concretely, it explores the variation in farmers’ ability to respond to new commercial opportunities. To complement the extensive literature on the economic and institutional effects of factor endowments, this paper revisits two
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The colonial struggle over polygamy: Consequences for educational expansion in sub-Saharan Africa Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-07-23 Bastian Becker
ABSTRACT Christian missions in colonial Africa have contributed significantly to the expansion of formal education and thereby shaped the continent’s long-term economic and political development. This paper breaks new ground by showing that this process depended on local demand for education. It is argued that disagreements over norms, and in particular the struggle over polygamy, which resulted from
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Inequality of education in colonial Ghana: European influences and African responses Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-06-24 Prince Young Aboagye
ABSTRACT How and why did African households under colonial rule make the decision to educate their children or not, and how did this micro-level decision making affect the diffusion of education in colonial Ghana? This paper addresses these questions and shows that many households were reluctant to enrol their children in school because the costs of colonial education were prohibitive, and the benefits
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Two of the most eventful years in the history of the South African Reserve Bank: William Henry Clegg and Johannes Postmus and the 1931–1932 crisis Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-06-07 Bradley Bordiss, Vishnu Padayachee, Jannie Rossouw
ABSTRACT The SA Reserve Bank (SARB) was created as a result of an earlier gold standard monetary crisis that unfolded after World War I. From 1919, South Africa nominally maintained the gold standard, but not the conversion of banknotes into gold. This article seeks to discuss the SARB's views on the gold standard controversy, and to highlight the different attitudes of the first two governors, Clegg
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One hundred years of private shareholding in the South African Reserve Bank Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-06-07 Cobus Vermeulen
ABSTRACT The South African Reserve Bank (SARB) is one of only nine central banks around the world with private shareholders. This paper contributes to the understanding of this ownership arrangement by outlining the history and evolution of private shareholding in the SARB since its inception in 1921 to the present day. It considers the reasons for shares having been issued to establish the SARB, and
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A tale of paper and gold: The material history of money in South Africa Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-06-07 Ellen Feingold, Johan Fourie, Leigh Gardner
ABSTRACT This paper uses the South African objects in the National Numismatic Collection of the Smithsonian to tell a new material history of money in South Africa. In other parts of the continent, research about the currencies in use and how these changed over time have offered a new perspective on the impact of colonialism, commercialization, and the rise of state capacity. South Africa, and southern
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Precedents of mass migration: Policies, occupations, and the sorting of foreigners in São Paulo, Brazil (1872) Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-05-05 Bruno Gabriel Witzel de Souza
ABSTRACT This paper studies the distribution of foreigners across counties of the province of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1872. The analysis stresses the historical importance of policies that fostered immigration in the nineteenth century by discussing the two main migratory strategies pursued in Brazil by the 1870s, namely the recruitment of foreign bonded labourers to the plantations and of settlers to
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The Portuguese escudo area in Africa and its lessons for monetary unions Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-04-16 Maria Eugénia Mata, Luís Catela Nunes, Mário Roldão
ABSTRACT The beginnings of the Portuguese Escudo Monetary Zone (EMZ) in 1961, to promote the economic integration of Portugal and its empire, coincide in time with Mundell’s seminal paper about optimum currency areas. If non-optimality was the cause of the EMZ’s demise, this would suggest that monetary unions are fragile achievements, with little prospect for survival. The EMZ turned out to be a short-lived
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Gold and South Africa’s Great Depression Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-04-08 Barry Eichengreen
ABSTRACT In this paper I seek to understand the roots of South African macroeconomic outperformance since 1929 and whether it can be reconciled with what I have described as conventional wisdom about recovery from the Depression. Unsurprisingly, I find a way of fitting South Africa into that story. In addition, I try to understand better why, if going off the gold standard was so beneficial, indeed
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Bourses, banks, and Boers: Johannesburg’s French connections and the Paris Krach of 1895 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-03-09 Mariusz Lukasiewicz
ABSTRACT The 1894/5 Paris boom in South African mining securities set forth the ultimate test of financial resilience for the South African Republic’s mining and financial sectors. The financial crash in Paris that halted the international boom in October 1895 exposed the globalized nature of markets for South African mining securities and their impact on colonial politics in southern Africa. This
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Poverty and inequality in Francophone Africa, 1960s–2010s Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-01-21 Sédi-Anne Boukaka, Giulia Mancini, Giovanni Vecchi
ABSTRACT The paper provides first generation estimates of poverty and inequality rates for three countries in Francophone Africa – Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, and Gabon – in the aftermath of independence. Sources – a large collection of historical household budgets – are new, as is the method that allows to connect historical sources to modern household budget surveys, and to deliver nationally representative
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Colonial legacy, private property, and rural development: Evidence from Namibian countryside Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-01-27 Vladimir Chlouba, Jianzi He
ABSTRACT Does the legacy of direct colonial rule, through its impact on property rights security, affect rural development in Africa? Although mainstream economic theory links secure property rights to development, extant micro-level evidence from the continent remains mixed. We take advantage of a natural experiment in Namibia, exploiting as-if random application of direct colonial rule that later
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Structural change in a small natural resource intensive economy: Switching between diversification and re-primarization, Uruguay, 1870–2017 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2021-02-24 Carolina Román, Henry Willebald
ABSTRACT The increasing interest in economic diversification, technological sophistication, and production specialization again places structural change at the centre of the economic development theory. However, efforts to measure structural change from a long-run perspective remain scarce. We aim to fill this gap using a synthetic indicator that represents the dynamics of structural change in the
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Parliamentary experience and contemporary democracy in Africa: A Northian view Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Joseph Keneck Massil, Sophie Harnay
ABSTRACT In a series of pioneering works, Douglass North argues that the institutional innovations taking place in seventeenth-century England as a consequence of a modification of the balance of power between the Parliament and the Crown provided the conditions not only for economic growth, but also for the development of democratic institutions later on. Our article extends his analysis to the study
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‘Hit your man where you can’: Taxation strategies in the face of resistance at the British Cape Colony, c.1820 to 1910 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-10-12 Abel Gwaindepi, Krige Siebrits
ABSTRACT The topic of this article is the development of the tax system of the Cape Colony from 1820 to 1910. This period was crucial for the introduction and diffusion of modern taxes, and the Cape constitutes an important case as the prime settler-colony in Africa. The article uses a new tax dataset and evidence from official documents to trace and explain the Colony’s growing revenue problems during
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Beyond national markets: The case of emerging African multinationals Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-05-03 Ebes Esho, Grietjie Verhoef
ABSTRACT Findings from research on emerging market multinationals (EMNEs) have posed some intriguing questions to scholars. While some of the questions are easy to explain through the lens of extant theories, others are more complex. Research on African multinationals is limited and being only a recent phenomenon, historical accounts of their internationalization is scarce. Early findings suggest that
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The business of barter on the pre-colonial Gold Coast Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-01-28 Klas Rönnbäck
ABSTRACT Trade on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century was dominated by non-monetized barter trade. In this paper, a large dataset of barter transactions are used to study the social embeddedness of the trade. The data shows that prestige goods such as alcohol to a disproportionate degree were exchanged for other prestige goods such as gold. Guns – but also cheaper types of textiles – were to a
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American slavery and labour market power Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Suresh Naidu
ABSTRACT In this article I discuss the micro-economics of American slavery in light of recent research on monopsonistic labour markets. I argue that the defining characteristic of coerced labour, the threat of violence to prevent voluntary quits from a job, can be helpfully understood by contrasting it with free labour markets that are riven with imperfect competition and agency problems. American
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Frank Stuart Jones, 29 March 1933–19 October 2019 Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2020-01-02 Grietjie Verhoef
Frank Stuart Jones was a great Economic Historian, scholar and mentor – intellectually vigorous and brilliant – extremely well read. He was born in Timperley, near Altrincham, Manchester. His final...
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The substitutability of slaves: Evidence from the eastern frontier of the Cape Colony Economic History of Developing Regions Pub Date : 2019-12-19 Calumet Links, Johan Fourie, Erik Green
ABSTRACT The substitutability of the economic institution of slave labour has often been assumed as a given. Apart from some capital investment to retrain slaves for a different task, essentially their labour could be substituted for any other form of labour. This paper questions that assumption by using a longitudinal study of the Graaff-Reinet district on the eastern frontier of South Africa’s Cape