Publications
Publications
Show Results For
- All HBS Web
(242)
- Faculty Publications (20)
Page 1 of 20
Results
- Summer 2023
- Article
(Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly
By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg
The revocation of the Royal African Company's monopoly in 1698 inaugurated a transformation of the transatlantic slave trade. While the RAC’s exit from the slave trade has received scholarly attention, little is known about the company’s response to the loss of its... View Details
- August 2023
- Article
What About the Race Between Technology and Education in the Global South? Comparing Skill-premiums in Colonial Africa and Asia
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
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 Asian economies allows us to compare long-run patterns in skill premiums across the colonial... View Details
- 2023
- Article
Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
This review article seeks to build bridges between mainstream African history and the more historically oriented branch of the ‘new’ economic history of Africa. We survey four central topics of the new economic history of Africa—growth, trade, labor, and inequality—and... View Details
Keywords: Economic Growth; Trade; Labor; Equality and Inequality; Development Economics; History; Africa
- January 2023
- Article
Inequality Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa from Precolonial Times to the Present
By: Ewout Frankema, Michiel de Haas and Marlous van Waijenburg
While current levels of economic inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa receive ample attention from academics and policymakers, we know little about the long-run evolution of inequality in the region. Even the new and influential ‘global inequality literature’ that is... View Details
- January 2023
- Article
Racial Diversity and Racial Policy Preferences: The Great Migration and Civil Rights
By: Alvaro Calderon, Vasiliki Fouka and Marco Tabellini
Between 1940 and 1970, more than 4 million African Americans moved from the South to the North of the United States, during the Second Great Migration. This same period witnessed the struggle and eventual success of the civil rights movement in ending institutionalized... View Details
Keywords: Civil Rights; Great Migration; History; Race; Rights; Prejudice and Bias; Government Legislation
- Article
From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation During the Great Migration
By: Vasiliki Fouka, Soumyajit Mazumder and Marco Tabellini
How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the U.S. South to Northern... View Details
- 2022
- Chapter
Fiscal Development under Colonial and Sovereign Rule
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
This chapter explores differences in the making of a ‘modern’ fiscal state under colonial and sovereign rule. Focusing on African and Asian colonies (1820–1970) and their respective European metropoles, it argues that while the introduction of ‘modern’... View Details
Keywords: Fiscal Modernization; Colonial Rule; Economic History; Sovereign Finance; History; Taxation; Africa; Asia
- 2021
- Chapter
The Economic and Political Effects of Immigration: Evidence from the Age of Mass Migration
By: Marco Tabellini
Between 1850 and 1920, during the Age of Mass Migration, more than 30 million Europeans moved to the United States. European immigrants provided ample supply of cheap labor as well as specific skills and know-how, contributing to American economic growth. These... View Details
- September 2019 (Revised December 2022)
- Background Note
African American Inequality in the United States
By: Janice H. Hammond, A. Kamau Massey and Mayra G. Garza
This note describes how historical and on-going policies and practices that discriminate against African Americans led to present-day inequality. Topics include slavery, segregation, Jim Crow laws, “black codes,” and policies and practices relating to criminal justice,... View Details
- October 2018
- Case
African Bank Investments Limited (A)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details
- October 2018
- Supplement
African Bank Investments Limited (B)
By: Lynn S. Paine and Will Hurwitz
Less than a year after joining the board of African Bank Investments Limited (ABIL), the newest director finds himself in difficult discussions with other directors about removing the struggling company’s CEO. The case is set in South Africa in mid-2014 as shares in... View Details
- October 2018
- Article
Africa Rising? A Historical Perspective
By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
Sub-Saharan Africa’s recent economic boom has raised hopes and expectations to lift the regions’ ‘bottom millions’ out of poverty by 2030. How realistic is that goal? We approach this question by comparing the experiences of three front-runners of region-specific... View Details
- 2021
- Working Paper
From Immigrants to Americans: Race and Assimilation During the Great Migration
By: Vasiliki Fouka, Soumyajit Mazumder and Marco Tabellini
How does the arrival of a new minority group affect the social acceptance and outcomes of existing minorities? We study this question in the context of the First Great Migration. Between 1915 and 1930, 1.5 million African Americans moved from the U.S. South to Northern... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Racial Heterogeneity and Local Government Finances: Evidence from the Great Migration
By: Marco Tabellini
Between 1915 and 1930, during the First Great Migration, more than 1.5 million African Americans migrated from the South to the North of the United States, altering the racial profile of several northern cities for the first time in American history. I exploit this... View Details
Keywords: Migration; Race; City; Financial Condition; Government and Politics; History; United States
- 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
- September 2014 (Revised September 2015)
- Case
Doing Business in Morocco
By: Jill Avery, Tonia Junker and Daniela Beyersdorfer
This case examines the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Morocco. It highlights Morocco's ongoing economic transformation in the decades leading up to 2014 in the context of its historical, political, and cultural background. The case summarizes some of... View Details
- June 2013 (Revised November 2016)
- Case
Goldfinger: Charles W. Engelhard Jr. and Apartheid-era South Africa
By: Geoffrey Jones and Elliot R. Benton
This case considers the strategies of Charles W. Engelhard, an American mining magnate who made large investments in apartheid-era South Africa. Engelhard was widely believed to have been the model for the James Bond villan Auric Goldfinger. During the 1950s and 1960s... 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
- March 2006 (Revised November 2006)
- Case
The Market and the Mountain Kingdom: Change in Lesotho's Textile Industry
By: Rawi E. Abdelal, Regina M. Abrami, Noel Maurer and Aldo Musacchio
In Maseru, the capital of the Kingdom of Lesotho, the stirrings of industrialization and modernization were promising, and more than 50,000 workers, mostly women, were employed in the textile sector; the figure reflected more than a threefold increase in just a few... View Details
Keywords: History; Labor Unions; Trade; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Financial Crisis; Globalized Markets and Industries; Business and Government Relations; Decision Choices and Conditions; Foreign Direct Investment; Developing Countries and Economies; Fashion Industry; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Lesotho