Post-colonial trends of income inequality: Evidence from the overseas departments of France

Yajna Govind

World Development, 2025, vol. 194, issue C

Abstract: The link between former colonies and their colonizers has implications for inequality in the post-colonial period. In this paper, I provide evidence from a unique setting in which former colonies were administratively assimilated into the colonial metropolis. Putting together a novel income tax dataset for the four oldest French colonies, now overseas departments of France, I estimate the evolution of income inequality from decolonization in 1946 to the present. I find that the top income shares declined rapidly since decolonization but remained consistently higher than in mainland France. Exploiting contemporary administrative data, I document that mainland-born individuals are over-represented at the top of the labor income distribution and in the high-paying public sector in the overseas departments. Thus, while departmentalization reduced overall inequality, it perpetuated a legacy of colonial income hierarchies into the post-colonial era.

Keywords: Post-colonial; Inequality; Ethnic; Historical series (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D31 F54 J15 J45 R10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:194:y:2025:i:c:s0305750x25001548

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2025.107069

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