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Income Inequality in Colonial Africa: Building Social Tables for Pre-Independence Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, and Senegal

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  • Guido Alfani
  • Federico Tadei

Abstract

Today, income inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa is exceptionally high. In this paper, we study whether present-day inequality can be traced back to the colonial period by reconstructing income distributions in a sample of representative colonies. To do so, we use data from colonial records to build new social tables for French colonies in West and Central Africa and we combine them with available information on British colonies in East and Southern Africa. We find that inequality in Africa is not a recent phenomenon. Income inequality was extremely high during the colonial period, in particular because of the huge income differential between Africans and European settlers. Nevertheless, it tended to reduce over time and the post-colonial period is characterized by much lower inequality. Interestingly, the decline of inequality is not necessarily a consequence of independence: the trends toward reduction started under colonial rule. JEL Classification: N17; O43 Keywords: Africa, Inequality, Income Distribution, Development, Extractive Institutions

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  • Guido Alfani & Federico Tadei, 2017. "Income Inequality in Colonial Africa: Building Social Tables for Pre-Independence Central African Republic, Ivory Coast, and Senegal," Working Papers 594, IGIER (Innocenzo Gasparini Institute for Economic Research), Bocconi University.
    • Handle: RePEc:igi:igierp:594
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    2. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2020. "Income inequality under Colonial Rule: Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with the Br," CEPR Discussion Papers 14969, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Alvaredo, Facundo & Cogneau, Denis & Piketty, Thomas, 2021. "Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    4. von Fintel, Dieter & Links, Calumet & Green, Erik, 2023. "Estimating Historical Inequality from Social Tables: Towards Methodological Consistency," Lund Papers in Economic History 247, Lund University, Department of Economic History.
    5. Vito Ricci & Giacomo Zanibelli, 2021. "For a Multidimensional Measure of Land Inequality in 1930s Italy. A Historical-Statistical Analysis," Documentos de Trabajo (DT-AEHE) 2107, Asociación Española de Historia Económica.
    6. Aroop Chatterjee, 2019. "Measuring wealth inequality in South Africa: An agenda," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2019-45, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    7. Ireen Choga & Fiyinfoluwa Giwa, 2023. "The Effect of Property Tax on Income Redistribution in Selected African Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(7), pages 1-15, March.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    africa; inequality; income distribution; development; extractive institutions;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • N17 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Africa; Oceania
    • O43 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Institutions and Growth

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