Publications

What about the race between education and technology in the Global South? Comparing skill premiums in colonial Africa and Asia

Historical research on the race between education and technology has focused on the West but barely touched upon ‘the rest’. A new occupational wage database for 50 African and... View Details

December 1984
Teaching Note

Colonial Food Services Co., James Cranston, and Eugene Kirby (A), Teaching Note

By: Michael Beer

Teaching Note for (9-478-005), (9-478-006), and (9-478-007). View Details

Keywords: Food and Beverage Industry

2012
Working Paper

Colonial Institutions, Trade Shocks, and the Diffusion of Elementary Education in Brazil, 1889–1930

By: Aldo Musacchio, Andre Martinez-Fritscher and Martina Viarengo

In this paper, we examine the role of trade shocks in promoting the diffusion of elementary education in subnational units in Brazil during a period (1889–1930) in which they had relative financial autonomy to collect export taxes and spend on public goods. The... View Details

Keywords: History; Literacy; Voting; Education; Spending; Performance Improvement; Government and Politics; Brazil

SSRN

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20 Apr 2019
News

A Mars Colony Could Be Humanity's First Shot at a Ground-Up, Pure Economy

20 Mar 2018
Working Paper Summaries

Countering Political Risk in Colonial India: German Multinationals and the Challenge of Internment (1914–1947)

Keywords: by Christina Lubinski, Valeria Giacomin, and Klara Schnitzer

2018
Working Paper

Countering Political Risk in Colonial India: German Multinationals and the Challenge of Internment (1914-1947)

By: Christina Lubinski, Valeria Giacomin and Klara Schnitzer

Internment in so-called “enemy countries” was a frequent occurrence in the 20th century and created significant obstacles for multinational enterprises (MNEs). This article focuses on German MNEs in India and shows how they addressed the formidable challenge of the... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Employees; War; History; Outcome or Result; India

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Working Paper

Institutional Access and Failure: Colonial Legal Systems and Persistent Institutional Inadequacy in Tropical Africa

By: Catherine S. M. Duggan

September 2005
Article

History, Institutions and Economic Performance: the Legacy of Colonial Land Tenure Systems in India

By: Abhijit Banerjee and Lakshmi Iyer

Keywords: History; Property; Performance; India

January 2022
Background Note

Native American Incarceration

By: Reshmaan Hussam, Sophus A. Reinert and Jordan Naylor

In the early twenty-first century the Native American populations of the United States continued to live with the legacy of colonialism, ethnic cleansing, and cultural destruction. Although other minority groups had increasingly been able to make their voices heard,... View Details

Keywords: Colonialism; Incarceration; Social Issues; Race; Equality and Inequality; History

Educators

2022
Book

Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

By: Caroline M. Elkins

Sprawling across a quarter of the world’s land mass and claiming nearly seven hundred million people, Britain’s twentieth-century empire was the largest empire in human history. For many Britons, it epitomized their nation’s cultural superiority, but what legacy did... View Details

Keywords: Imperialism; Violence; Colonialism; History; Government and Politics; Power and Influence; Race; Policy; United Kingdom

2021
Article

Internment as a Business Challenge: Political Risk Management and German Multinationals in Colonial India (1914–1947)

By: Christina Lubinski, Valeria Giacomin and Klara Schnitzer

Keywords: Internment; Political Risk; International Business; Multinational Firms and Management; Employees; War; History; Outcome or Result; India; Germany

June 2017 (Revised August 2018)
Case

Goodbye IMF Conditions, Hello Chinese Capital: Zambia's Copper Industry and Africa's Break with Its Colonial Past

By: Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons, Sarah Mehta and David Lane

Over the past several decades, rapid growth in Chinese investment and trade has created for Africa a new development partner. China represents an alternative to U.S. and European nations whose past imperialism, resource avarice, and economic dictates—through the... View Details

Keywords: Copper; Imperialism; IMF; World Bank; ODA; Debt Relief; Growth and Development; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Labor and Management Relations; History; Development Economics; China; Zambia; Africa

Educators

June 2017 (Revised August 2017)
Teaching Note

Goodbye IMF Conditions, Hello Chinese Capital: Zambia's Copper Industry and Africa's Break with Its Colonial Past

By: Rafael Di Tella, Vincent Pons, Sarah Mehta and David Lane

Teaching Note for HBS No. 717-034. View Details

December 2012
Article

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

By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg

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... View Details

Keywords: Living Standards; Real Wages; Labor Market; Colonial Institutions; Economic Growth; Wages; History; Africa

October 2017
Article

American Danger: United States Empire, Eurafrica, and the Territorialization of Industrial Capitalism, 1870–1950

By: Sven Beckert

During the last third of the nineteenth century, a debate emerged in a number of European countries on the “American danger.” Responding to the rapid rise of the United States as the world’s most important economy, some European observers feared their nations’... View Details

Keywords: Atlantropa; Colonial Expansion; Economic Nationalism; Second Great Divergence; Economics; Global Range; History; United States; Europe; Africa

Awards

World Economic History Congress Dissertation Prize

By: Marlous van Waijenburg

2018: Winner of the International Economic History Association's triennial Dissertation Prize in the Twentieth Century category for "Financing the African Colonial State: Fiscal Capacity Building and Forced Labor." View Details

Awa Ambra Seck

Awa Ambra Seck is an Assistant Professor in the View Details

2012
Mimeo

Françafrique and Oil

By: Noel Maurer

France's special relationship with its oil-producing former colonies has become entirely divorced from economic or strategic considerations. What drives the relationship, rather, are special interests: the French oil companies, the connections between African leaders... View Details

Keywords: Relationships; Economics; Strategy; Natural Environment; Interests; Crime and Corruption; Energy Industry; France; Gabon; Congo, Republic of the