Understanding Long‐Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education
(2009) In Journal of Development Studies 45(1). p.24-24- 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... (More)
- 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. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/7421edb9-49c5-4ce5-ae94-e5199bee3702
- author
- Bolt, Jutta LU and Bezemer, Dirk
- publishing date
- 2009
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- in
- Journal of Development Studies
- volume
- 45
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 54 pages
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:58049092155
- ISSN
- 0022-0388
- DOI
- 10.1080/00220380802468603
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- no
- id
- 7421edb9-49c5-4ce5-ae94-e5199bee3702
- date added to LUP
- 2022-01-20 11:54:27
- date last changed
- 2022-04-27 07:22:51
@article{7421edb9-49c5-4ce5-ae94-e5199bee3702,
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.}},
author = {{Bolt, Jutta and Bezemer, Dirk}},
issn = {{0022-0388}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{24--24}},
publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}},
series = {{Journal of Development Studies}},
title = {{Understanding Long‐Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00220380802468603}},
doi = {{10.1080/00220380802468603}},
volume = {{45}},
year = {{2009}},
}