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On the Institutional Legacy of Mercantilist and Imperialist Colonialism

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Author Info
Olsson, Ola () (Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University)

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Abstract

The article features a temporal approach to modelling the social impact of Western colonialism. We collect a data set for all former colonies and dependencies that are regarded as countries today (143 observations). Our data, as well as existing theory, suggest that the very heterogeneous era of colonization might be divided into an early ’mercantilist’ wave and a much later ’imperialist’ wave with quite different characteristics. We demonstrate that a commonly used determinant of institutional quality - colonial settler mortality - had a much weaker effect on institutional outcomes during the imperialist scramble for Africa. When we broaden the analysis, it is shown that the positive effect of colonial duration on democracy is strongest among countries colonized during the imperialist era. Controlling for colonial duration, our results further indicate that a long history of statehood is bad for democracy while there is almost no effect of the national identity of the colonizer.

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File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2077/3135
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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Göteborg University, Department of Economics in its series Working Papers in Economics with number 247.

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Length: 49 pages
Date of creation: 09 Mar 2007
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Handle: RePEc:hhs:gunwpe:0247

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Postal: Department of Economics, School of Business, Economics and Law, Göteborg University Box 640, SE 405 30 GÖTEBORG, Sweden
Phone: 031-773 10 00
Web page: http://www.handels.gu.se/econ/
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Related research
Keywords: colonialism; democracy; institutions; development; settler mortality;

Find related papers by JEL classification:
N40 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, and Regulation - - - General, International, or Comparative
N50 - Economic History - - Agriculture, Natural Resources, Environment and Extractive Industries - - - General, International, or Comparative
P33 - Economic Systems - - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions - - - International Linkages

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