Changing Income Inequality and Structural Transformation: The Case of Botswana 1921-2010

Ellen Hillbom and Jutta Bolt

No wp-2015-028, WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER)

Abstract: In Sub-Saharan Africa we find some of the highest levels of income inequality in the world. Nevertheless, we generally know very little about the historical development of inequality. In this paper we look at how inequality developed in colonial and post-colonial Botswana. We show that income inequality started rising in the 1940s and peaked in the mid-1970s about the time that the economy switched from cattle to diamonds. Since the 1990s, it has then declined somewhat.

Keywords: Colonies; Equality and inequality; Income distribution; Natural resources; Poverty measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.wider.unu.edu/sites/default/files/wp2015-028.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:unu:wpaper:wp-2015-028

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in WIDER Working Paper Series from World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Siméon Rapin ().