Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-jr42d Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T04:55:20.843Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 December 2012

Ewout Frankema  and
Marlous Van Waijenburg
Ewout Frankema*
Affiliation:
Professor of History, Wageningen University, Hollandseweg 1, 6706 KN Wageningen, The Netherlands. E-mail: ewout.frankema@wur.nl.
Marlous Van Waijenburg*
Affiliation:
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of History, Northwestern University, 1881 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208-2220. E-mail: MarlousVan2015@u.northwestern.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recent literature on the historical determinants of African poverty has emphasized structural impediments to African growth, such as adverse geographical conditions, weak institutions, or ethnic heterogeneity. But has African poverty been a persistent historical phenomenon? This article checks such assumptions against the historical record. We push African income estimates back in time by presenting urban unskilled real wages for nine British African colonies (1880–1965). We find that African real wages were well above subsistence level and that they rose significantly over time. Moreover, in West Africa and Mauritius real wage levels were considerably higher than those in Asia.

Type
ARTICLES
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 72 , Issue 4 , 14 December 2012 , pp. 895 - 926
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., and Robinson, J.. “The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation.” American Economic Review 91, no. 5 (2001): 1369–1401.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Akurang-Parry, K. O. “‘We Cast About for a Remedy’: Chinese Labor and African Opposition in the Gold Coast, 1874–1914.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 34, no. 2 (2001): 365–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C. “The Great Divergence in European Wages and Prices from the Middle Ages to the First World War.” Explorations in Economic History 38, no. 4 (2001): 411–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C.. The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C.. Global Economic History: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C., Bassino, J.-P., Moll-Murata, C., Ma, D., and van Zanden, J. L.. “Wages, Prices, and Living Standards in China, 1738–1925: In Comparison with Europe, Japan, and India.” Economic History Review 64, no. 1 (2011): 8–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Allen, R. C., T. E. Murphy, and E. B. Schneider. “The Colonial Origins of the Divergence in the Americas: A Labour Market Approach.” IGIER Working Paper Series No. 402, Milan, July 2011.Google Scholar
Austin, G.Labour, Land, and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956. New York: University of Rochester Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, G.. “Labour and Land in Ghana, 1874–1939: A Shifting Ratio and an Institutional Revolution.” Australian Economic History Review 47, no. 1 (2007): 95–120.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, G.. “The ‘Reversal of Fortune’ Thesis and the Compression of History: Perspectives from African and Comparative Economic History.” Journal of International Development 20, no. 8 (2008): 996–1027.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, G., J. Baten, and B. van Leeuwen. “The Biological Standard of Living in Early Nineteenth-Century West Africa: New Anthropometric Evidence for Northern Ghana and Burkina Faso.” Economic History Review. Article first published online: 26 SEP 2011. Available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2011.00627.x/full.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bates, R. H.Beyond the Miracle of the Market: The Political Economy of Agrarian Development in Kenya. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Bates, R. H., Coatsworth, J. H., and Williamson, J. G.. “Lost Decades: Postindependence Performance in Latin America and Africa.” The Journal of Economic History 67, no. 4 (2007): 917–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bloom, D., Sachs, J., Collier, P., and Udry, C.. “Geography, Demography, and Economic Growth in Africa.” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, no. 2 (1998): 207–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourguignon, F., and Morrisson, C.. “Inequality Among World Citizens, 1820–1990.” American Economic Review 92, no. 4 (2002): 727–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowden, S., Chiripanhura, B., and Mosley, P.. “Measuring and Explaining Poverty in Six African Countries: A Long-Period Approach.” Journal of International Development 20, no. 8 (2008): 1049–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Broadberry, S., and Gupta, B.. “The Early Modern Great Divergence: Wages, Prices, and Economic Development in Europe and Asia, 1500–1800.” Economic History Review 59, no. 1 (2006): 2–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bush, B., and Maltby, J.. “Taxation in West Africa: Transforming the Colonial Subject into the ‘Governable Person.’” Critical Perspectives on Accounting 15, no. 1 (2004): 5–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cogneau, D., and Rouanet, L.. “Living Conditions in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Western Africa, 1925–1985: What Do Survey Data on Height Stature Tell Us?” Economic History of Developing Regions 26, no. 2 (2011): 55–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cooper, F.Decolonization and African Society: The Labor Question in French and British Africa. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Zwart, P. “South African Living Standards in Global Perspective, 1835–1910.” Economic History of Developing Regions 26, no. 1 (2011): 49–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Diamond, J.Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1997.Google Scholar
Dobado, R., and H. Garcia. “Neither So Low Nor So Short! Wages and Heights in Eighteenth- and Early Nineteenth-Centuries Colonial Latin America.” Working Papers del Instituto Complutense de Estudios Internacionales, No. 14-09, Madrid, May 2009.Google Scholar
Easterly, W., and Levine, R.. “Africa's Growth Tragedy: Politics and Ethnic Divisions.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 112, no. 4 (1997): 1203–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fenske, J. “The Causal History of Africa: A Response to Hopkins.” Economic History of Developing Regions 25, no. 2 (2010): 177–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankema, E. “Raising Revenue in the British Empire, 1870–1940: How ‘Extractive’ Were Colonial Taxes?” Journal of Global History 5, no. 3 (2010a): 447–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankema, E.. “The Colonial Roots of Land Inequality: Geography, Factor Endowments, or Institutions?” Economic History Review 63, no. 2 (2010b): 418–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankema, E.. “Colonial Taxation and Government Spending in British Africa, 1880–1940: Maximizing Revenue or Minimizing Effort?” Explorations in Economic History 48, no. 1 (2011): 136–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frankema, E.. “Industrial Wage Inequality in Latin America in Global Perspective, 1900–2000.” Studies in Comparative International Development 47, no. 1 (2012): 47–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gallup, J., Sachs, J., and Mellinger, A.. “Geography and Economic Development.” International Regional Science Review 22, no. 2 (1999): 179–232.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gardner, L.Taxing Colonial Africa: The Political Economy of British Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Global Price and Income History Group. “Wage and Price Databases.” UC Davis and International Institute of Social History, 2012.Google Scholar
Hahn, S. K., L. Reynolds, and G. N. Egbunike. “Cassava as Livestock Feed in Africa.” The IITA/ILCA/University of Ibadan Workshop on the Potential of Cassava as Livestock Feed in Africa, 14–18 November 1988. International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, Ibadan, NigeriaGoogle Scholar
Hopkins, A. G.An Economic History of West Africa. London: Longman, 1973.Google Scholar
Iliffe, J.The African Poor: A History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jerven, M. “Random Growth in Africa? Lessons from an Evaluation of the Growth Evidence on Botswana, Kenya, Tanzania, and Zambia, 1965–1995.” Journal of Development Studies 46, no. 2 (2010): 274–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jerven, M.. “Users and Producers of African Income: Measuring the Progress of African Economies.” African Affairs 110, no. 439 (2011): 169–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnson, M. “Elephants for Want of Towns.” In African Historical Demography, Vol. 2, edited by Fyfe, C. and MacMaster, D., 315–30. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Legg, J. P., and Thresh, J. M.. “Cassava Mosaic Virus Disease in East Africa: A Dynamic Disease in a Changing Environment.” Virus Research 71, no. 1–2 (2000): 135–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macdonald, R. J.From Nyasaland to Malawi: Studies in Colonial History. Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1975.Google Scholar
Maddison, A.The World Economy: Historical Statistics. Paris: OECD, 2003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, M.Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Manning, P. “African Population: Projections, 1851–1961.” In The Demographics of Empire: The Colonial Order and the Creation of Knowledge, edited by Ittmann, K., Cordell, D. D., and Maddox, G. H., 245–75. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
McCann, J.C.Maize and Grace: Africa's Encounter with a New World Crop, 1500–2000. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McPhee, A.The Economic Revolution in British West Africa. London: G. Routledge & Sons, 1926.Google Scholar
Moradi, A. “Confronting Colonial Legacies: Lessons from Human Development in Ghana and Kenya, 1880–2000.” Journal of International Development 20, no. 8 (2008): 1107–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moradi, A.. “Towards an Objective Account of Nutrition and Health in Colonial Kenya: A Study of Stature in African Army Recruits and Civilians, 1880–1980.” The Journal of Economic History 96, no. 3 (2009): 720–55.Google Scholar
Mosley, P.The Settler Economies: Studies in the Economic History of Kenya and Southern Rhodesia, 1900–1963. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, N. “The Long-Term Effects of Africa's Slave Trades.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 123, no. 1 (2008): 139–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nunn, N., and Qian, N.. “The Potato's Contribution to Population and Urbanization: Evidence from a Historical Experiment.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 126, no. 1 (2011): 593–650.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pamuk, Ş. “Urban Real Wages Around the Eastern Mediterranean in Comparative Perspective, 1100–2000.” Research in Economic History 23, no. ? (2006): 213–32.Google Scholar
Pamuk, Ş., and Ozmucur, S.. “Real Wages and Standards of Living in the Ottoman Empire, 1489–1914.” The Journal of Economic History 62, no. 2 (2002): 292–321.Google Scholar
Pinkovskiy, M., and X. Sala-i-Martin. “African Poverty is Falling…Much Faster Than You Think!” NBER Working Paper No. 15775, Cambridge, MA, February 2010.Google Scholar
Subramanian, A., and Roy, D.. “Who Can Explain the Mauritian Miracle? Meade, Romer, Sachs, or Rodrik?” In In Search of Prosperity: Analytic Narratives on Economic Growth, edited by Rodrik, D., 205–43. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, B. “Human Capital and Economic Growth in India, Indonesia, and Japan: A Quantitative Analysis, 1890–2000.” Ph.D. diss., Utrecht University, 2007.Google Scholar
L.van Zanden, J. van Zanden, J. “Wages and the Standard of Living in Europe, 1500–1800.” European Review of Economic History 3, no. 2 (1999): 175–97.Google Scholar
Voth, H.-J., and Voightländer, N.. “Persecution Perpetuated: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Semitic Violence in Nazi Germany.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 127 no. 3 (2012): 1339–92.Google Scholar
Williamson, J. G. “Real Wages, Inequality, and Globalization in Latin America Before 1940.” Revista de Historia Económica 17, S1 (1999): 101–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wolmar, C.Blood, Iron, and Gold: How the Railways Transformed the World. New York: PublicAffairs, 2009.Google Scholar
Worldbank. World Development Report 2010: Development and Climate Change. Washington, DC: World Bank, 2009.Google Scholar
Wrigley, C. C. “Aspects of Economic History.” In The Colonial Moment in Africa: Essays on the Movement of Minds and Materials, 1900–1940, edited by Roberts, A., 77–139. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yan, S. “Real Wages and Wage Inequality in China, 1860–1936.” Ph.D. diss., University of California Los Angeles, 2008.Google Scholar
Young, C.The African Colonial State in Comparative Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Statistical yearbooks and government reports:Google Scholar
Nyasaland Protectorate, Blue Book. Zomba: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Zomba: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
Sierra Leone, Blue Book. Freetown: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Freetown: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The British East Africa Protectorate, Blue Book. Nairobi: Government Printing Office, various issues; this publication changed into the The Colony and Protectorate of Kenya, Blue Book. Nairobi: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Nairobi: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Colony and Protectorate of Nigeria, Blue Book. Lagos: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of Nigeria for 1938. London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1938.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Lagos: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Colony of Mauritius, Blue Book. Port Louis: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Port Louis: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Colony of the Gambia, Blue Book. Bathurst: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Barhurst: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Gold Coast Colony, Blue Book. Accra: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report on the Social and Economic Progress of the People of the Gold Coast, 1931–1932. London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, 1933.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Accra: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Tanganyika Territory, Blue Book. Dar es Salaam: Government Printing Office, various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Dar es Salaam: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
The Uganda Protectorate, Blue Book. Kampala: Government Printing Office: various issues.Google Scholar
Young, C.. Annual Report of the Labour Department. Entebbe: The Government Printer, various issues.Google Scholar
Other:Google Scholar
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Statistical Tables Relating to the Colonial and Other Possessions of the United Kingdom. London: His Majesty's Stationary Office, various issues; this publication changed into House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, Statistical Tables Relating to British Self-Governing Dominions, Colonies, Possessions, and Protectorates.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: PDF

Frankerra supplementary appendix

Frankerra supplementary appendix

Download Frankerra supplementary appendix(PDF)
PDF 148.9 KB