IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/hbu/wpaper/7.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Living standards in pre-independent Ghana: evidence from household budgets

Author

Listed:
  • Eric Gaisie

Abstract

Poor living standards among indigenous residents have been cited as one of the main factors that motivated Africans to forcefully push for political independence from colonial rule during the first half of the twentieth century. Unfortunately, there has been limited evidence to back this assertion especially with personal welfare with reference often made to national level indicators. This article dwells on household budgets to provide empirical information about the living conditions of indigenous residents in Ghana prior to independence. In addition to a thorough analysis of the socio-economic conditions prevailing at the time, poverty measurements are made to estimate the incidence, depth and severity of poverty in the country in the 1950s.

Suggested Citation

  • Eric Gaisie, 2017. "Living standards in pre-independent Ghana: evidence from household budgets," HHB Working Papers Series 7, The Historical Household Budgets Project.
    • Handle: RePEc:hbu:wpaper:7
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.hhbproject.com/media/workingpapers/7_EGaisie.pdf
    File Function: 7_EGaisie.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Branko Milanovic, 2002. "True World Income Distribution, 1988 and 1993: First Calculation Based on Household Surveys Alone," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(476), pages 51-92, January.
    2. Anthony Mveyange, 2015. "Night lights and regional income inequality in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series 085, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    3. Poleman, Thomas T., 1961. "The Food Economies of Urban Middle Africa: The Case of Ghana," Food Research Institute Studies, Stanford University, Food Research Institute, vol. 2(2), pages 1-55.
    4. Anonymous, 1953. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 410-411, August.
    5. Brian A'Hearn & Nicola Amendola & Giovanni Vecchi, 2016. "On Historical Household Budgets," Rivista di storia economica, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 2, pages 137-176.
    6. World Bank, 2011. "Republic of Fiji - Poverty Trends, Profiles and Small Area Estimation (Poverty Maps) in Republic of Fiji (2003-2009)," World Bank Publications - Reports 2791, The World Bank Group.
    7. Tilottama Ghosh & Sharolyn J. Anderson & Christopher D. Elvidge & Paul C. Sutton, 2013. "Using Nighttime Satellite Imagery as a Proxy Measure of Human Well-Being," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 5(12), pages 1-32, November.
    8. Daron Acemoglu & Simon Johnson & James A. Robinson, 2002. "Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1231-1294.
    9. Stanley L. Engerman, 1997. "The Standard of Living Debate in International Perspective: Measures and Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: Health and Welfare during Industrialization, pages 17-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Anonymous, 1953. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(4), pages 561-565, November.
    11. Vecchi, Giovanni, 2017. "Measuring Wellbeing: A History of Italian Living Standards," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199944590.
    12. Gareth Austin & Jörg Baten & Alexander Moradi, 2007. "Exploring the evolution of living standards in Ghana, 1880- 2000: An anthropometric approach," Working Papers 7021, Economic History Society.
    13. Angus Deaton & Salman Zaidi, 2002. "Guidelines for Constructing Consumption Aggregates for Welfare Analysis," World Bank Publications, The World Bank, number 14101, April.
    14. Vasco Molini & Pierella Paci, 2015. "Poverty Reduction in Ghana—Progress and Challenges," World Bank Publications - Reports 22733, The World Bank Group.
    15. Denis Cogneau & Léa Rouanet, 2009. "Living Conditions in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Western Africa 1925-1985: What Do Survey Data on Height Stature Tell Us?," Working Papers DT/2009/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    16. Anthony Mveyange, 2015. "Night lights and regional income inequality in Africa," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2015-085, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. Steckel, Richard H., 2009. "Heights and human welfare: Recent developments and new directions," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 1-23, January.
    18. Anonymous, 1953. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 267-269, May.
    19. Vasco Molini & Pierella Paci, 2015. "Poverty Reduction in Ghana," World Bank Publications - Reports 22732, The World Bank Group.
    20. Anonymous, 1953. "International Bank for Reconstruction and Development," International Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(1), pages 134-137, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Michele Alacevich, 2010. "Development Agency or Bank? Vision and Strategy of the World Bank in the 50’s and 60’s," QA - Rivista dell'Associazione Rossi-Doria, Associazione Rossi Doria, issue 1, March.
    2. Steele, J. G. & Ramdin, H. N., 1971. "Soil Resources Of Guyana," 9th Annual Meeting, 1971, Georgetown, Guyana 263363, Caribbean Food Crops Society.
    3. Alacevich, Michele, 2008. "The World Bank's early reflections on development : a development institution or a bank?," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4670, The World Bank.
    4. Emanuele Felice & Amedeo Lepore, 2017. "State intervention and economic growth in Southern Italy: the rise and fall of the ‘Cassa per il Mezzogiorno’ (1950–1986)," Business History, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 59(3), pages 319-341, April.
    5. Jay Mandle, 1970. "The decline in mortality in British Guiana, 1911-1960," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 7(3), pages 301-315, August.
    6. Sanderson, Agnes G., 1963. "British Guiana: Its Agriculture and Trade," Miscellaneous Publications 316469, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    7. Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, 2007. "The Political Economy of Protectionism: The Mexican Textile Industry, 1900-1950," NBER Chapters, in: The Decline of Latin American Economies: Growth, Institutions, and Crises, pages 363-406, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Herath, Deepananda P.B. & Weersink, Alfons, 2003. "Vertical Coordination Changes In The Sri Lankan Tea Industry:Transaction, Management, And Production Costs," 2003 Annual meeting, July 27-30, Montreal, Canada 21941, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    9. Jerven , Morten & Austin , Gareth & Green, Erik & Uche , Chibuike & Frankema , Ewout & Fourie , Johan & Inikori , Joseph & Moradi , Alexander & Hillbom , Ellen, 2012. "Moving Forward in African Economic History: Bridging the Gap Between Methods and Sources," African Economic History Working Paper 1/2012, African Economic History Network.
    10. Clementi, Fabio & Molini, Vasco & Schettino, Francesco, 2018. "All that Glitters is not Gold: Polarization Amid Poverty Reduction in Ghana," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 275-291.
    11. Lessmann, Christian & Seidel, André, 2017. "Regional inequality, convergence, and its determinants – A view from outer space," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 110-132.
    12. Denis Cogneau & Léa Rouanet, 2009. "Living Conditions in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana and Western Africa 1925-1985: What Do Survey Data on Height Stature Tell Us?," Working Papers DT/2009/12, DIAL (Développement, Institutions et Mondialisation).
    13. Clementi,F. & Fabiani,M. & Molini,V., 2018. "The devil is in the details : growth, polarization, and poverty reduction in Africa in the past two decades," Policy Research Working Paper Series 8494, The World Bank.
    14. F. Clementi & A. L. Dabalen & V. Molini & F. Schettino, 2020. "We forgot the middle class! Inequality underestimation in a changing Sub-Saharan Africa," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 18(1), pages 45-70, March.
    15. World Bank, 2016. "Poverty Reduction in Nigeria in the Last Decade," World Bank Publications - Reports 25825, The World Bank Group.
    16. Martin Evans, 2018. "Simulating policy options for universal child allowances in Ghana," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2018-145, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    17. José Gabriel Palma, 2011. "Forum 2011," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 42(1), pages 87-153, January.
    18. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4300 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Dobado González, Rafael & García Montero, Héctor, 2010. "Colonial Origins of Inequality in Hispanic America? Some Reflections Based on New Empirical Evidence," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 28(2), pages 253-277, September.
    20. Antonio M. Linares-Luján & Francisco M. Parejo-Moruno, 2019. "Height, Literacy and Survival: A Composite Index of Wellbeing Based on Data from Military Recruitment (1880–1980)," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 144(3), pages 999-1019, August.
    21. Nxumalo, Mpumelelo Author-Name: Raju, Dhushyanth, "undated". "Structural Transformation and Labor Market Performance in Ghana," Jobs Group Papers, Notes, and Guides 154568, The World Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Accra; Ghana; household budgets; independence; living standards; poverty; poverty line;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • I32 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Measurement and Analysis of Poverty
    • N37 - Economic History - - Labor and Consumers, Demography, Education, Health, Welfare, Income, Wealth, Religion, and Philanthropy - - - Africa; Oceania

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:hbu:wpaper:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Giuliana Freschi (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.hhbproject.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.