[DEBATE] : Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial Education? Evidence from a New Data Set

[Riaz K Tayob]

Understanding Long-Run African Growth: Colonial Institutions or Colonial 
Education? Evidence from a New Data Set
Date: 2008-02
By: Bolt, Jutta
Bezemer, Dirk
URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:7029&r=hrm
Long-term growth in developing countries has been explained in four 
frameworks: ‘extractive colonial institutions’ (Acemoglu et al., 2001), 
‘colonial legal origin’ (La Porta et al., 2004) ‘geography’ (Gallup et 
al., 1998) and ‘colonial human capital’ (Glaeser et al., 2004). In this 
paper we test the ‘colonial human capital’ explanation for sub-Saharan 
Africa, controlling for legal origins and geography. Utilizing freshly 
collected data on colonial-era population density and education, we find 
that in sub-Saharan Africa, high European population mortality did not 
lead to low European population densities, contra Acemoglu et al., 
(2001). Further, we find that instrumented human capital explains 
long-term growth better, and shows greater stability over time, than 
instrumented measures for extractive institutions. We therefore suggest 
that the impact of the disease environment on African long-term g rowth 
runs through a human capital channel rather than an 
extractive-institutions channel. The effect of education is robust to 
including variables capturing legal origin and geography, which have 
additional explanatory power. We also find some evidence that 
institutions are endogenous to education.
Keywords: Africa; growth; institutions; education; colonial history
JEL: O11 O10 P51 P16