The flexibility of slave labour as an economic institution has often been assumed as a given. In general, some capital investment is necessary to retrain novice slaves but essentially they could be substituted for any other form of labour. This paper refutes the claim of the flexibility of slave...

Does wealth persist over time, despite the disruptions of historical shocks like colonisation? This paper shows that South Africa experienced a reversal of fortunes after the arrival of European settlers in the eastern half of the country. Yet this was not, as some have argued was the case...

The emancipation of the enslaved across the British Empire in 1834 is one of the major events in world history. Slave-owners received cash compensation for freeing the enslaved. In the Cape Colony, appraisers assigned a value to the former slaves which was later used to calculate the...

The arrival of European settlers at the Cape in 1652 marked the beginning of what would become an extremely unequal society. Comparative analysis reveals that certain endowments exist in societies that experience a 'persistence of inequality'. This paper shows that the emphasis on endowments may...

This research note identifies the period when South African prices began to move in unison with those of the country's lead trading partner. We find that South African wheat prices started reflecting UK trends soon after the discovery of diamonds and gold in the interior of the country. The...

Most historians regard the Cape Colony of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as an impoverished and destitute settlement, primarily because of the many restrictions and prohibitions enforced by the Dutch East India Company, who founded the Cape settlement as a refreshment station for its...

Using a standard panel gravity equation of 175 origin/destination countries between 1995 and 2008, 43 of which are African, we identify the factors that drive African-inbound (arrivals to Africa from other continents) and within-African tourism (arrivals from and to an African country). We find...

New estimates of GDP of the Dutch Cape Colony (1652-1795) suggest that the Cape was one of the most prosperous regions during the eighteenth century. This stands in sharp contrast to the perceived view that the Cape was an “economic and social backwater”, a slave economy with slow growth and...

Opsomming: Wat was die gemiddelde trou-ouderdom vir Kaapse mans en vroue in die agtiende en negentiende eeu? Ons vind, deur gebruik te maak van ’n nuwe genealogiese datastel, dat voor die 1850s die mediaan Kaapse setlaarsvrou getrou tussen die ouderdom van 19 en 20 jaar met ’n man wat tussen...