The Berlin Conference of 1884-1885 formalised what has become known as the ‘Scramble for Africa’. European powers arbitrarily divided up Africa among themselves and started administrating their new colonies. Seventy years later they bequeathed to native Africans countries that looked remarkably different from how they looked in 1880. And, albeit with some exceptions, these countries are among the poorest in the world today.

Africa without colonialism?

Would Africa’s economic development have been different without colonialism? Would it have been richer today? Debate has raged on this question for 50 years but for the first time exciting research by economic historians in colonial archives is putting the debate on a sound empirical footing. Some of the findings are puzzling for critics of colonialism. There is evidence of improved economic development outcomes within the colonial period, for instance real wages increased under the formal sector in British West Africa (Frankema and Van Waaijenburg 2005). Moreover, the stature of military recruits in Ghana and British East Africa suggests that height increased during the colonial period (Moradi 2009, Austin, Baten and Moradi 2011), a sign of increasing prosperity. Was colonial rule as predatory as many claim? Should we take this as evidence that colonialism was good for development? Our recent research (Heldring and Robinson 2012) evaluates this question and argues that the answer is probably no.

A few observations are in order:

Most African countries saw steadily rising incomes over the colonial period relative to the base year 1885.
Africans were able to reap the benefits of the introduction of railways and mining technology. Furthermore, being colonised meant deeper integration into world trade. Yet, how much of this is due to colonialism and how much of it would have happened anyway, in the wake of trade expansion is unclear.

The fact that we see living standards increase on average does not imply that everybody’s living standards increased.
For instance, in southern Africa the immiserising impact of land expropriation and the creation of ‘dual economies’ (Palmer and Parsons 1977) on incomes suggests that Africans experienced a severe deterioration in living standards as the consequence of colonialism. So we might observe formal sector wages going up while the vast majority of the population, cut off from the formal sector, sees its purchasing power deteriorate.

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