Output Per Head in Pre-Independence Africa: Quantitative Conjectures

Abstract

GDP figures for Africa are unreliable. More dependable information can be found in government expenditure and international trade records. These records, though, provide little insight into non-market output. In this paper an attempt is made to draw explicit conjectures on real output per head in preindependence Africa on the basis of trade data so that conjectures can be established about Africa's long-run growth. Two alternative approaches are considered. One estimates per capita GDP by assuming no increase in output per head outside the tradable sector, for which the purchasing power of per capita exports is accepted as a proxy. Another approach establishes an econometric association between real per capita GDP and the income terms of trade per head for and, on the basis of the prediction equation's parameters and the values of the RHS variables, infers real output per head for . Trends in real output per head are then drawn for Africa (and its main regions). By comparing these trends with those from other developing regions, some conjectures about Africa's relative position over time are put forward. It emerges that economic growth started earlier than usually assumed and there is continuity in growth before and after colonial independence. SubSaharan Africa's retardation is a gradual process, as growing and falling behind took place simultaneously. But it is in the period 1975-1995 when the worst setback in modern Africa's history took place.Keywords: GDP, long-run growth, pre-independence Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa JEL Classification: E01; N17; O47; O55 More dependable information can be found in government expenditure and international trade records. These records, though, provide little insight into non-market output. In this paper an attempt is made to draw explicit conjectures on real output per head in pre-independence Africa on the basis of trade data so that conjectures can be established about Africa's long-run growth. Two alternative approaches are considered. One estimates per capita GDP by assuming no increase in output per head outside the tradable sector, for which the purchasing power of per capita exports is accepted as a proxy. Another approach establishes an econometric association between real per capita GDP and the income terms of trade per head for and, on the basis of the prediction equation's parameters and the values of the RHS variables, infers real output per head for . Trends in real output per head are then drawn for Africa (and its main regions). By comparing these trends with those from other developing regions, some conjectures about Africa's relative position over time are put forward. It emerges that economic growth started earlier than usually assumed and there is continuity in growth before and after colonial independence. Sub-Saharan Africa's retardation is a gradual process, as growing and falling behind took place simultaneously. But it is in the period 1975-1995 when the worst setback in modern Africa's history took place.

World Human Development: 1870–2007

“…Similarly to the cases of social indicators, I have assumed a lower bound for per capita GDP that has been set at G‐K 1990$300, which represents a basic level of physiological subsistence (Sagar and Najam, ; Milanovic et al ., ), below both the World Bank's extreme poverty threshold of G‐K 1990$1 a day per person and Maddison's () G‐K 1990$400 per capita. GDP per capita (G‐K 1990$) data come from Maddison (, ) and Prados de la Escosura () supplemented with historical national accounts.…”

Measuring rural welfare in colonial Africa: did Uganda's smallholders thrive?

“…Prados de la Escosura, ‘Output per head’; idem, ‘Human development’; Jerven, ‘West African experiment’.…”

South Africa in the Australian mirror: per capita real GDP in the Cape Colony, Natal, Victoria, and New South Wales, 1861–1909

“…Prados de la Escosura, ‘Output per head’, has recently published estimates of output per head for Africa since 1870. Fourie and van Zanden, ‘GDP in the Dutch Cape Colony’, have also attempted to reconstruct the GDP of the Dutch Cape Colony from 1701 onwards, but their figures for the nineteenth century were based on earlier drafts of the series for the Cape used in this article, which have since been refined and expanded.…”