This case study examines how social protection policymaking in Côte d’Ivoire has been shaped by a complex interplay of colonial legacies, postcolonial ideologies and domestic political-economic dynamics. Through stakeholder interviews and documentary analysis, it offers a nuanced...

Tanzania has made notable progress in expanding its social protection system, yet the influence of colonial governance models, entrenched donor dependency and limited population coverage of existing provisions remain significant. This case study critically explores the historical and...

The historical influence of colonial powers and the continued, deep-rooted engagement of international development actors in shaping social protection systems is widely recognised across academic and policy arenas. Nevertheless, evidence of the role of coloniality in social protection remains...

Are railways always a harbinger of prosperity? We examine the economic effects of railways in Bosnia-Herzegovina under Habsburg colonial rule. Our novel dataset consistently tracks the non-agrarian population share of over 4,500 settlements in Habsburg Bosnia in 1885, 1895, and 1910, based on...

In 1924, John Maynard Keynes complained about the fact that Southern Rhodesia, which he described as "a place somewhere in the middle of Africa", was able to raise loans on the London market on the same terms as a large English borough. Existing literature on the "empire effect" has contended...

The transition from sail to steam for emigrant ships on the route to Australia took place in the early 1880s, nearly two decades later than on the route across the Atlantic. The lag can be accounted for by the incremental improvement in steam technology and by aspects of economic and business...

Nunn & Wantchekon (2011) detect a long-lasting impact of the slave trade on current trust levels across ethnic groups in Africa. They use data from Afrobarometer's wave 3 to construct trust measures. While I can perfectly replicate the original OLS and 2SLS findings in this wave starting from...

This study examines the long-term impact of Hyanggyo, state-sponsored educational institutions established during the early Joseon Dynasty in Korea (1392-1592), on human capital accumulation. Although these schools largely ceased functioning as educational centers by the late 16th century, their...

The "European" agricultural model introduced during the first British settlement in 1788 proved unsuitable for the very different Australian environment, forcing farmers to adapt creatively. This study examines how climate shaped such adaptive behavior in wheat farming in Australia from the...

In recent years, German colonialism has received growing public attention - a history long overshadowed by the World Wars. Due to its short-lived character, a long-term comparative view of German colonialism has not featured prominently in most accounts of European imperialism. This chapter...

A vast literature across several academic disciplines studies the impact of colonial rule, but less attention has been paid to the consequences of decolonization. This paper uses a recently-constructed dataset on the fiscal history of African countries from 1900 to 2015 to analyze the impact of...

This article proposes to take a fresh look at Germany’s colonial past and its key players in order to trace the particular influence of economy in colonial contexts. It presents the Gutehoffnungshütte (GHH) as a colonial actor outside the sectors typically explored in the context of the...

Taking German Cameroon as an example, this article uses the concept of the colonial intermediary to analyze Africans' role in colonial capitalism. While researchers have shown that the colonial state depended on Africans, the importance of African intermediaries in European trade has hardly been...

By providing a working definition of an expatriate colonial business, this article examines the role of the Woermann group's integration into and support of colonialism through trade, plantations, and logistics. Focusing on its activities in Cameroon and the pivotal role of the Woermann Linie...

We examine colonial-era primary education as a determinant of modern-day attainment and gender disparities in education. We construct a novel dataset from the French Protectorate in Morocco, combining archival data on colonial school locations in 1931 and 1954 with the most recent Demographic...

The global turn towards the market of the 1980s and 1990s led some to believe that globalization was untethering itself from its political moorings. More recently, however, the combined impact of the China shock, Covid, and war have revealed even to economists what historians and political...

This study explores the historical trajectory of colonialism in Africa and its role in early migration patterns. It challenges the common perception of migration as a recent response to social stress and desperation in underdeveloped communities. Instead, it delves into the impact of colonialism...