The modern impact of precolonial centralization in Africa

Abstract

Africa, Precolonial institutions, Centralization, Modernization,

Moralizing gods and armed conflict

“…Participants who self-identified as believers were significantly more likely to exercise the aggressive option, and especially more likely to do so when primed to believe that the violent passage was from the Bible. Bushman et al (2007) conclude that violence that is sanctioned by moralizing gods 3 Recent research has documented, for example, that modern-day fertility and attitudes to gender roles have been shaped by centuries-old division of labor Nunn, 2011, 2013), that more democratic contemporary institutions are well-explained by the traditional political accountability of local chiefs (Gennaioli and Rainer, 2007), that a history of political centralization is associated with better development outcomes (Michalopoulos and Papaioannou, 2013), that the origins of modern distrust and underdevelopment in Africa can be traced back to the slave trade that began in the 16th century (Nunn, 2008;Nunn and Wantchekon, 2011), that early democratic features predict long-term economic success (Madsen, Raschky and Skali, 2015), that pre-colonial conflicts in Africa have left a legacy of conflict (Besley and Reynal-Querol, 2014) and, more generally, that culture matters for economic growth (Gorodnichenko and Roland, 2011). significantly increases aggression.…”

Land abundance and economic institutions: Egba land and slavery, 1830–19141

“…3 3 D. Bezemer, J. Bolt, and R. Lensink, ‘Indigenous slavery in Africa's history: conditions and consequences’, paper presented at the World Economic History Congress, Utrecht (3–7 Aug. 2009); Englebert, ‘Pre‐colonial institutions’; Gennaioli and Rainer, ‘Modern impact’. …”

Economic History of Developing Regions

“…For example, variable v33 in the database is a variable that measures the level of jurisdictional hierarchy beyond the local community, which is commonly used as a measure of state centralization and state development (e.g. Gennaioli & Rainer 2007, Michalopoulos & Pappaioannou 2013, Nunn 2007. The values of variable v33 take on integer values that indicate one of each of the following six categories:…”

“…If above the chief, there was a district leader, then above this, there was a territory leader, and above this a provincial leader, and above this the paramount chief, then this variable would take on the value of four. The variable has been used by Nunn (2008), Gennaioli and Rainer (2007), and Michalopoulos and Pappaioannou (2013) to measure pre-colonial political centralization in Africa.…”

“…This source has been widely used in the political economy, economic history, and cultural economics literatures: e.g. Gennaioli & Rainer 2007, Alesina, Giulioano, & Nunn 2013, Michalopoulos & Pappaioannou 2013 In what follows, we provide a detailed description of the dataset, first describing the underlying data, the procedure used to construct the dataset, and the structure of the final database. We then provide illustrations of some of the variation in the data.…”