IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jdevst/v45y2009i1p24-54.html

Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education?

Author

Listed:
  • Jutta Bolt
  • Dirk Bezemer

Abstract

Long-term growth in developing countries has been explained in four frameworks: 'extractive colonial institutions' (Acemoglu et al., 2001), 'colonial legal origin' (La Porta et al., 2004), 'geography' (Gallup et al., 1998) and 'colonial human capital' (Glaeser et al., 2004). In this paper we test the 'colonial human capital' explanation for sub-Saharan Africa, controlling for legal origin and geography. Utilising data on colonial era education, we find that instrumented human capital explains long-term growth better, and shows greater stability over time, than instrumented measures for extractive institutions. We suggest that the impact of the disease environment on African long-term growth runs through a human capital channel rather than an extractive-institutions channel. The effect of education is robust to including variables capturing legal origin and geography, which have additional explanatory power.

Suggested Citation

  • Jutta Bolt & Dirk Bezemer, 2009. "Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(1), pages 24-54.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jdevst:v:45:y:2009:i:1:p:24-54
    DOI: 10.1080/00220380802468603
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00220380802468603
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/00220380802468603?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Luke Gallup & Jeffrey D. Sachs & Andrew D. Mellinger, 1998. "Geography and Economic Development," NBER Working Papers 6849, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Edward Glaeser & Giacomo Ponzetto & Andrei Shleifer, 2007. "Why does democracy need education?," Journal of Economic Growth, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 77-99, June.
    3. Simeon Djankov & Rafael Porta & Florencio de & Andrei Shleifer, 2002. "Courts: The Lex Mundi Project," Yale School of Management Working Papers ysm277, Yale School of Management, revised 01 Nov 2003.
    4. Gallup, John L. & Sachs, Jeffrey D. & Mellinger, Andrew, "undated". "Geography and Economic Development," Instructional Stata datasets for econometrics geodata, Boston College Department of Economics.
    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. Bolt, Jutta & Bezemer, Dirk, 2008. "Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education? Evidence from a New Data Set," MPRA Paper 7029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Mr. Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2006. "Growth and Reforms in Latin America: A Survey of Facts and Arguments," IMF Working Papers 2006/210, International Monetary Fund.
    3. Gnidchenko, Andrey, 2011. "Моделирование Технологических И Институциональных Эффектов В Макроэкономическом Прогнозировании [Technological and Institutional Effects Modeling in Macroeconomic Forecasting]," MPRA Paper 35484, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised May 2011.
    4. Amin, Mohammad & Djankov, Simeon, 2014. "Democratic institutions and regulatory reforms," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(4), pages 839-854.
    5. Alan Martina, 2007. "A Class of Poverty Traps: A Theory and Empirical Tests," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2007-482, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    6. Grimm, Michael & Klasen, Stephan, 2007. "Geography vs. Institutions at the Village Level," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 9, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics.
    7. Robert P. Inman, 2008. "Federalism's Values and the Value of Federalism," NBER Working Papers 13735, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Jordan Rappaport & Jeffrey D. Sachs, 2001. "The U.S. as a coastal nation," Research Working Paper RWP 01-11, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    9. Carlos Díaz-Venegas, 2014. "Identifying the Confounders of Marginalization and Mortality in Mexico, 2003–2007," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 118(2), pages 851-875, September.
    10. Thorsten Beck, 2003. "Small and medium enterprises, growth, and poverty : cross-country evidence," Policy Research Working Paper Series 3178, The World Bank.
    11. Ng, Pin & Zhao, Xiaobing, 2011. "No matter how it is measured, income declines with global warming," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(5), pages 963-970, March.
    12. Máximo Torero & Javier Escobal, 2000. "Does Geography Explain Differences in Economic Growth in Peru?," Research Department Publications 3103, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
    13. Bluedorn, John C. & Valentinyi, Akos & Vlassopoulos, Michael, 2009. "The Long-Lived Effects of Historic Climate on the Wealth of Nations," MPRA Paper 18701, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. K. Navaneetham, 2002. "Age structural transition and economic growth: Evidence from South and Southeast Asia," Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum Working Papers 337, Centre for Development Studies, Trivendrum, India.
    15. Steven Brakman & Harry Garretsen & Marc Schramm, 2004. "The strategic bombing of German cities during World War II and its impact on city growth," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 4(2), pages 201-218, April.
    16. Redding, Stephen & Venables, Anthony J., 2004. "Economic geography and international inequality," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(1), pages 53-82, January.
    17. J.Peter Neary, 2001. "Of Hype and Hyperbolas: Introducing the New Economic Geography," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(2), pages 536-561, June.
    18. Michael Minkov & Vesselin Blagoev, 2014. "Is there a distinct Asian management culture?," Asia Pacific Business Review, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(2), pages 209-215, April.
    19. Dalgaard, C. & Olsson, O., 2007. "Why Are Market Economies Politically Stable? A Theory of Capitalist Cohesion," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 0765, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    20. Leonardo Gatica Arreola & Mauricio Ramirez Grajeda, 2006. "The bell-shaped curve of international trade openness: a panel data test for OECD countries," EconoQuantum, Revista de Economia y Finanzas, Universidad de Guadalajara, Centro Universitario de Ciencias Economico Administrativas, Departamento de Metodos Cuantitativos y Maestria en Economia., vol. 3(1), pages 7-34, Julio-Dic.

    More about this item

    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:taf:jdevst:v:45:y:2009:i:1:p:24-54. 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: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/FJDS20 .

    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.