Long-run trends in Africa’s well-being are provided on the basis of a new index of human development, alternative to the UNDP’s HDI. A sustained improvement in African human development is found that falls, nonetheless, short of those experienced in other developing regions. Within Africa,...

Income distribution has been a main topic in economics since the days of Gregory King and William Petty. In this paper some empirical issues in the study of labor income are surveyed in the light of economic history, including the hypothesis of the stability of factor shares across time and...