IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/jechis/v80y2020i4p1189-1223_8.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

How Africans Shaped British Colonial Institutions: Evidence from Local Taxation

Author

Listed:
  • Bolt, Jutta
  • Gardner, Leigh

Abstract

The institutions that governed most of the rural population in British colonial Africa have been neglected in the literature on colonialism. We use new data on local governments, or “Native Authorities,” to present the first quantitative comparison of African institutions under indirect rule in four colonies in 1948: Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Nyasaland, and Kenya. Tax data show that Native Authorities’ capacity varied within and between colonies, due to both underlying economic inequalities and African elites’ relations with the colonial government. Our findings suggest that Africans had a bigger hand in shaping British colonial institutions than often acknowledged.

Suggested Citation

  • Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2020. "How Africans Shaped British Colonial Institutions: Evidence from Local Taxation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1189-1223, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:jechis:v:80:y:2020:i:4:p:1189-1223_8
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0022050720000455/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. Nathan Nunn, 2008. "The Long-term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 123(1), pages 139-176.
    3. Johnson, Noel D., 2006. "Banking on the King: The Evolution of the Royal Revenue Farms in Old Regime France," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 66(4), pages 963-991, December.
    4. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    5. Frankema, Ewout, 2011. "Colonial taxation and government spending in British Africa, 1880-1940: Maximizing revenue or minimizing effort?," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 136-149, January.
    6. Remi Jedwab & Edward Kerby & Alexander Moradi, 2017. "History, Path Dependence and Development: Evidence from Colonial Railways, Settlers and Cities in Kenya," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 127(603), pages 1467-1494, August.
    7. Elise Huillery, 2011. "The Impact of European Settlement within French West Africa: Did Pre-colonial Prosperous Areas Fall Behind?," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE), vol. 20(2), pages 263-311, March.
    8. van Waijenburg, Marlous, 2018. "Financing the African Colonial State: The Revenue Imperative and Forced Labor," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 40-80, March.
    9. Lars P. Feld & Bruno S. Frey, 2002. "Trust breeds trust: How taxpayers are treated," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 3(2), pages 87-99, July.
    10. Belinda Archibong, 2018. "Historical origins of persistent inequality in Nigeria," Oxford Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(3), pages 325-347, July.
    11. Nicola Gennaioli & Ilia Rainer, 2007. "The modern impact of precolonial centralization in Africa," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(3), pages 185-234, September.
    12. Remi Jedwab & Alexander Moradi, 2016. "The Permanent Effects of Transportation Revolutions in Poor Countries: Evidence from Africa," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(2), pages 268-284, May.
    13. Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay & Elliott Green, 2016. "Precolonial Political Centralization and Contemporary Development in Uganda," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 64(3), pages 471-508.
    14. Frankema, Ewout & Williamson, Jeffrey & Woltjer, Pieter, 2018. "An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835–1885," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 78(1), pages 231-267, March.
    15. Dincecco,Mark, 2013. "Political Transformations and Public Finances," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107617759.
    16. James Fenske, 2014. "Ecology, Trade, And States In Pre-Colonial Africa," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(3), pages 612-640, June.
    17. Rosenthal, Jean-Laurent & Wong, R. Bin, 2011. "Before and Beyond Divergence: The Politics of Economic Change in China and Europe," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674057913, Spring.
    18. Thandika Mkandawire, 2010. "On Tax Efforts and Colonial Heritage in Africa," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(10), pages 1647-1669.
    19. Osafo-Kwaako, Philip & Robinson, James A., 2013. "Political centralization in pre-colonial Africa," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(1), pages 6-21.
    20. Ewout Frankema & Morten Jerven, 2014. "Writing history backwards or sideways: towards a consensus on African population, 1850–2010," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 67(4), pages 907-931, November.
    21. Broadberry, Stephen & Gardner, Leigh, 2016. "Economic Development In Africa And Europe: Reciprocal Comparisons," Revista de Historia Económica / Journal of Iberian and Latin American Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(1), pages 11-37, March.
    22. Lange, Matthew K., 2004. "British Colonial Legacies and Political Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 905-922, June.
    23. Frankema, Ewout & Waijenburg, Marlous Van, 2012. "Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(4), pages 895-926, December.
    24. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2020. "How Africans Shaped British Colonial Institutions: Evidence from Local Taxation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1189-1223, December.
    25. Hoffman, Philip T., 2015. "What Do States Do? Politics and Economic History," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 75(2), pages 303-332, June.
    26. Karaman, K. Kivanç & Pamuk, Şevket, 2010. "Ottoman State Finances in European Perspective, 1500–1914," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 70(3), pages 593-629, September.
    27. Bertocchi, Graziella & Canova, Fabio, 2002. "Did colonization matter for growth?: An empirical exploration into the historical causes of Africa's underdevelopment," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 46(10), pages 1851-1871, December.
    28. Pranab Bardhan, 2002. "Decentralization of Governance and Development," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 185-205, Fall.
    29. Laura Maravall Buckwalter, 2019. "The Impact of a ‘Colonizing River’: Colonial Railways and the Indigenous Population in French Algeria at the turn of the Century," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 16-47, January.
    30. Joweria M. Teera & John Hudson, 2004. "Tax performance: a comparative study," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(6), pages 785-802.
    31. Michiel Haas, 2017. "Measuring rural welfare in colonial Africa: did Uganda's smallholders thrive?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 70(2), pages 605-631, May.
    32. Henderson, Morgan & Whatley, Warren, 2014. "Pacification and Gender in Colonial Africa: Evidence from the Ethnographic Atlas," MPRA Paper 61203, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    33. repec:dau:papers:123456789/4316 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2020. "How Africans Shaped British Colonial Institutions: Evidence from Local Taxation," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 80(4), pages 1189-1223, December.
    2. Becker, Bastian & Schmitt, Carina, 2023. "License to educate: The role of national networks in colonial empires," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 169(C).
    3. Dozie & Roland Pongou, 2021. "Missions and Heterogeneous Social Change: Evidence from Border Discontinuities in the Emirates of Nigeria," Working Papers 2112E Classification-I20,, University of Ottawa, Department of Economics.

    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. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2019. "African institutions under colonial rule," CEPR Discussion Papers 14198, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Johan Fourie & Nonso Obikili, 2019. "Decolonizing with data: The cliometric turn in African economic history," Working Papers 02/2019, Stellenbosch University, Department of Economics.
    3. Johnson, Noel D. & Koyama, Mark, 2017. "States and economic growth: Capacity and constraints," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 64(C), pages 1-20.
    4. Roessler, Philip & Pengl, Yannick I. & Marty, Robert & Titlow, Kyle Sorlie & van de Walle, Nicolas, 2022. "The cash crop revolution, colonialism and economic reorganization in Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Archibong, Belinda, 2019. "Explaining divergence in the long-term effects of precolonial centralization on access to public infrastructure services in Nigeria," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 123-140.
    6. Broich, Tobias & Szirmai, Adam & Thomsson, Kaj, 2015. "Precolonial centralisation, foreign aid and modern state capacity in Africa," MERIT Working Papers 2015-025, United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology (MERIT).
    7. Remi Jedwab & Felix Meier zu Selhausen & Alexander Moradi, 2022. "The economics of missionary expansion: evidence from Africa and implications for development," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 27(2), pages 149-192, June.
    8. Baten, Joerg & Maravall, Laura, 2021. "The influence of colonialism on Africa's welfare: An anthropometric study," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 751-775.
    9. Federico Tadei, 2022. "Colonizer identity and trade in Africa: Were the British more favourable to free trade?," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(2), pages 561-578, May.
    10. Bolt, Jutta & Gardner, Leigh, 2018. "Tax Compliance under Indirect Rule in British Africa," African Economic History Working Paper 40/2018, African Economic History Network.
    11. Fenske, James, 2010. "Institutions in African history and development: A review essay," MPRA Paper 23120, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Remi Jedwab & Adam Storeygard, 2019. "Economic and Political Factors in Infrastructure Investment: Evidence from Railroads and Roads in Africa 1960–2015," Economic History of Developing Regions, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(2), pages 156-208, May.
    13. Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2020. "Historical Legacies and African Development," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 58(1), pages 53-128, March.
    14. Gwaindepi, Abel, 2019. "Serving God and Mammon: The ‘Minerals-Railway Complex’ and its effects on colonial public finances in the British Cape Colony, 1810-1910," African Economic History Working Paper 44/2019, African Economic History Network.
    15. Fenske, James, 2015. "African polygamy: Past and present," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 58-73.
    16. Kodila-Tedika, Oasis & Asongu, Simplice, 2018. "The Long-Term Effects of African Resistance to European Domination: Institutional Mechanism," MPRA Paper 85237, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Graziella Bertocchi, 2016. "The legacies of slavery in and out of Africa," IZA Journal of Migration and Development, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 5(1), pages 1-19, December.
    18. Richens, Peter, 2009. "The economic legacies of the ‘thin white line’: indirect rule and the comparative development of sub-Saharan Africa," Economic History Working Papers 27879, London School of Economics and Political Science, Department of Economic History.
    19. Alberto Alesina & Sebastian Hohmann & Stelios Michalopoulos & Elias Papaioannou, 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility in Africa," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 89(1), pages 1-35, January.
    20. Gwaindepi, Abel, 2019. "Domestic revenue mobilization in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America: A comparative analysis since 1980," Lund Papers in Economic History 209, Lund University, Department of Economic History.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • N0 - Economic History - - General

    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:cup:jechis:v:80:y:2020:i:4:p:1189-1223_8. 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: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/jeh .

    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.