Although Nigeria's Benin region was a major rubber producer in 1960, the industry faltered before 1921. I use labour scarcity and state capacity to explain why rubber did not take hold in this period. The government was unable to protect Benin's rubber forests from over-exploitation. Plantations...

At the start of the Second World War, British policies restricted rubber planting in Nigeria's Benin region. After Japan occupied Southeast Asia, Britain encouraged maximum production of rubber in Benin. Late in the war, officials struggled with the planting boom that had occurred. The war was a...

We examine the determinants of time allocation and child labour in a year-long panel of time-use data from colonial Nigeria. Using quantitative and ethnographic approaches, we show that health shocks imposed time costs on individuals. Whether individuals could recruit substitutes depended on...