Income inequality under colonial rule. Evidence from French Algeria, Cameroon, Tunisia, and Vietnam and comparisons with British colonies 1920–1960

The Developmental Legacies of the Bifurcated Colonial State: Statistical Evidence from Sixty- Seven British, French, and Portuguese Colonies

This paper examines the impact of bifurcated colonial institutions—i.e. the use of distinctive legal codes for “native” vs. “settler” populations—for long-term development in 67 former British, French, and Portuguese colonies. Building on theoretical arguments by Mahmood Mamdani (1996) and Matthew Lange’s empirical research on the distinctive developmental legacies of direct vs. indirect Britis...

Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies: A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon

Colonial institutions are thought to be an important determinate of post-independence levels of political stability, economic growth, and public goods provision. In particular, many scholars have suggested that British institutions and culture are more conducive to growth and poverty alleviation than those of France or other colonizers. Systematic tests of this hypothesis have plagued by unobse...

Vietnam and the Colonial Condition of French Literature

Labour markets and representative institutions: evidence from colonial British America

The literature has identified the quality of political institutions in the transition region as an essential but understudied component of growth, transition and reform. This paper aims to disentangle the determinants of democratic institutions by investigating if high income inequality is always detrimental to the emergence and stability of such regimes, and under what circumstances labour sca...

Inequality, Mobility and Income Distribution Comparisons

This paper examines the relationship between the cross-sectional and lifetime income distributions using a simple model of relative income mobility. It asks whether cross-sectional comparisons between countries can provide a good indication of lifetime inequality differences if income mobility is similar, and whether lifetime inequality increases by less than cross-sectional inequality if the l...