Precolonial political centralization and contemporary development in Uganda

Bandyopadhyay, Sanghamitra and Green, Elliott (2016) Precolonial political centralization and contemporary development in Uganda. Economic Development and Cultural Change, 64 (3). pp. 471-508. ISSN 1539-2988

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Abstract

The role of precolonial history on contemporary development has become an important field of study within development economics. Here we examine the role of precolonial political centralization on contemporary development outcomes with detailed subnational data from Uganda. We use a variety of data sets and obtain two striking results. First, we find that precolonial centralization is highly correlated with modern-day development outcomes such as GDP, asset ownership, and poverty at the subcounty, district, and individual level; additional results using an instrumental variable approach confirm this finding. Second, we find that public goods such as immunization coverage and primary school enrollment, as well as perceptions of local government quality, are not correlated with precolonial centralization. These findings are thus consistent with a correlation between precolonial centralization and private rather than public goods, thereby suggesting the persistence of poverty and wealth from the precolonial period to the present.

Item Type:	Article
Official URL:	http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/edcc/current
Additional Information:	© 2016 The University of Chicago
Library of Congress subject classification:	J Political Science > JA Political science (General)
Sets:	Departments > International Development
Date Deposited:	12 May 2016 08:40
URL:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/66497/

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