What is the impact of modern transportation technology on long-run economic change in poor countries with high trade costs?  Rail construction in colonial Sub-Saharan Africa provides a natural experiment: 90% of African rail-road lines were built before independence, in a context where...

Little is known about the extent and forces of urban path dependence in developing countries.  Railroad construction in colonial Kenya provides a natural experiment to study the emergence and persistence of this spatial equilibrium.  Using new data at a fine spatial level over one century...

How well did Kenyans do under colonial rule?  It is common sense that Kenyans suffered under exploitative colonial policies.  The overall impact, however, is uncertain.  This study presents fresh evidence on nutrition and health in colonial Kenya by (1) using a new and comprehensive data set...

As formalized by Montgomery (1991), referral by employees improves efficiency if the unobserved quality of a new worker is higher than that of unrefereed workers.  Using data compiled by army archives, we test whether the referral system in use in the British colonial army in Ghana served to...

Using a complete panel of Ghanaian cocoa producers' societies in the 1930s, we investigate whether group interaction problems threatened (i) capital accumulation, (ii) cocoa sales and (iii) cooperative survival as membership size increased.  We find evidence of group interaction problems.  The...

Sub-Sahara African populations are tall relative to the extremely adverse disease environment and their low incomes.  Selective mortality, which removes shorter individuals leaving taller individuals in the population, was proposed as an explanation.  From heights of surviving and...

In the debate on gender discrimination in India a frequently used measure is sex ratio. We propose a new indicator: dimorphism in the nutritional and health status approximated by mean stature which reflects the burden of workload, and differential access to food and health, that surviving boys...

As formalized by Montgomery (1991), referral by employees improves efficiency if the unobserved quality of a new worker is higher than that of unrefereed workers. Using data compiled from army archives, we test whether the referral system in use in the British colonial army in Ghana served to...

The field of African economic history is in resurgence. This paper reviews recent and on-going research contributions and notes strengths in their wide methodological, conceptual and topical variety. In these strengths there is also a challenge: different methodological approaches may also...