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The Origins of Colonial Investments in Former British and French Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2021

Joan Ricart-Huguet Open the ORCID record for Joan Ricart-Huguet [Opens in a new window]
Joan Ricart-Huguet*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Loyola University Maryland, Baltimore, MD, USA
*
*E-mail: jricart-huguet@loyola.edu
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Abstract

Colonial investments impacted long-run political and economic development, but there is little systematic evidence of their origins and spatial distribution. Combining novel data sources, this article shows that colonial investments were very unequally distributed within sixteen British and French African colonies. What led colonial states to invest much more in some districts than others? The author argues that natural harbors and capes led some places to become centers of pre-colonial coastal trade, which in turn increased later colonial investments not only in infrastructure but also in health and education. Furthermore, distance from pre-colonial trading posts helps explain the diffusion of investments within each colony. The author finds limited support for alternative explanations such as natural resources and pre-colonial ethnic characteristics, including pre-colonial political centralization. These two findings suggest an economic origin for the regional and ethnic disparities observed in the colonial and contemporary periods.

Keywords

colonialismpublic investmentsregional inequalitysub-Saharan Africapre-colonial tradegeography
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 2 , April 2022 , pp. 736 - 757
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

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