This article seeks to revise and re-apply the factor endowments perspective on African history. The propositions that sub-Saharan Africa was characterized historically by land abundance and labour scarcity, and that the natural environment posed severe constraints on the exploitation of the land...

The Second Industrial Revolution created markets for new products for Ghana, rubber and then cocoa beans. Mechanised transport spurred the spread of cocoa planting. The paper estimates the resultant shift in factor ratios, and synthesises the data for prices of land-use rights and wages as the...