The Long-Term Effects of African Resistance to European Domination: Institutional Mechanism

In this study, we show that historic events have a long term incidence on institutional development. Within the framework of the paper, we attempt to provide insights into a historical dimension that has not received the scholarly attention it deserves in empirical literature, notably: African resistance in the face of colonization. The main finding suggests that contemporary institutions in Africa are endogenous to historical trajectories adopted by countries in the continent. Countries that experienced high resistance to colonial domination are associated with better contemporary governance standards. The findings are robust to a multitude of tests, notably: changes in estimation techniques, accounting for outliers, transformation of the outcome variable, control for endogeneity and changes of the outcome variable. JEL Classification: N17; P48; O55