Pre-Colonial Political Centralization and Contemporary Development in Uganda

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay and Elliott Green
Authors registered in the RePEc Author Service: Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay (s.bandyopadhyay@qmul.ac.uk)

No 39, Working Papers from Queen Mary, University of London, School of Business and Management, Centre for Globalisation Research

Abstract: The importance of pre-colonial history on contemporary African development has become an important field of study within development economics in recent years. In particular (Gennaioli & Rainer, 2007) suggest that pre-colonial political centralization has had an impact on contemporary levels of development within Africa at the country level. We test the (Gennaioli & Rainer, 2007) hypothesis at the sub-national level for the first time with evidence from Uganda. Using a variety of datasets we obtain results which are striking in two ways. First, we confirm the (Gennaioli & Rainer, 2007) hypothesis that pre-colonial centralization is highly correlated with modern-day development outcomes such as GDP, asset ownership and poverty levels, and that these correlations hold at the district, sub-county and individual levels. We also use an instrumental variable approach to confirm this finding using the distance from ancient capital of Mubende as an instrument. However, our second finding is that public goods like immunization coverage and primary school enrolment are not correlated with pre-colonial centralization. These findings are thus consistent with a correlation between pre-colonial centralization and private rather than public goods, thereby suggesting the persistence of poverty and wealth from the pre-colonial period to the present.

Keywords: Pre-colonial Political Centralization; Development; Uganda (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: H11 J23 J45 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-11
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

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http://cgr.sbm.qmul.ac.uk/CGRWP39.pdf

Related works:
Journal Article: Precolonial Political Centralization and Contemporary Development in Uganda (2016)
Working Paper: Pre-Colonial Political Centralization and Contemporary Development in Uganda (2012)
Working Paper: Pre-Colonial political centralization and contemporary development in Uganda (2012)
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