Indigenous Origins of Colonial Institutions

Luz Marina Arias and Desha M. Girod

Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2014, vol. 9, issue 3, 371-406

Abstract: What are the origins of colonial forced labor? While extensive research investigates the effects of colonial forced labor on contemporary political and economic development, little is known about the origins of colonial forced labor. Based on historical accounts, we offer a simple formal model that emphasizes constraints facing profit-maximizing colonists. The model provides a novel explanation for colonial forced labor by demonstrating that local and foreign forced labor depended on different factors. Colonists used local, indigenous forced labor when they encountered an indigenous political administration that was already coercing labor. However, colonists used foreign forced labor, like African slavery in the Americas, when indigenous labor was not already organized and natural resources were present. Original data from 439 subnational territories covering the Americas support the hypotheses across a variety of model specifications. This study implies that differences in political and economic development today may predate European colonialism.

Date: 2014
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://dx.doi.org/10.1561/100.00013135 (application/xml)

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:now:jlqjps:100.00013135

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Quarterly Journal of Political Science from now publishers
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Lucy Wiseman ().