As formalized by Montgomery (1991), referral by employees improves efficiency if the unobserved quality of a new worker is higher than that of unrefereed workers. Using data compiled from army archives, we test whether the referral system in use in the British colonial army in Ghana served to...

How did nutritional status develop in sub-Saharan Africa during the second half of the 20th century, and what role did economic development play in nutrition and health? Aggregating data from more than 200,000 women in 28 sub-Saharan African countries, we use mean height as an indicator of net...

A growing body of scholarly research locates the roots of Africa's poverty in its colonial past. However, studies avoid tracing Africa's development over the full course of history. In this paper, I quantify the changes in well-being of the African population in Ghana and Kenya, at the regional...