Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965
Abstract
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 phenomenon? This article checks such assumptions against the historical record. We push African income estimates back in time by presenting urban unskilled real wages for nine British African colonies (1880–1965). We find that African real wages were well above subsistence level and that they rose significantly over time. Moreover, in West Africa and Mauritius real wage levels were considerably higher than those in Asia.
Cite this
Ewout Frankema, Marlous van Waijenburg (2012). Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965. The Journal of Economic History. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022050712000630
@article{ewout2012structural,
title = {Structural Impediments to African Growth? New Evidence from Real Wages in British Africa, 1880–1965},
author = {Frankema, Ewout and Waijenburg, Marlous van},
year = {2012},
journal = {The Journal of Economic History},
doi = {10.1017/s0022050712000630}
}Citations in this library
Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 193 citations exist upstream.