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Institutions historiques et développement économique en Afrique. Une revue sélective et critique de travaux récents

Author

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  • Denis Cogneau

    (Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD), PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

  • Yannick Dupraz

    (PSE - Paris School of Economics - UP1 - Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne - ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris - PSL - Université Paris Sciences et Lettres - EHESS - École des hautes études en sciences sociales - ENPC - École des Ponts ParisTech - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - INRAE - Institut National de Recherche pour l’Agriculture, l’Alimentation et l’Environnement)

Abstract

This paper makes a selective review of the recent economic literature studying the effect of historical institutions on economic development in Africa. We first discuss a few conceptual issues implied by the measurement of institutions, then present the data gathered by anthropologist G. P. Murdock and their main critiques. A growing number of works make a new use of these data while trying to show that some "ethnic" precolonial institutions are fundamental determinants of present-day differences in development. We comment upon these works and contrast them with others which rather relativize the institutional differences inherited from the colonial period. We finally argue that comparisons of case studies are more promising than cross-sectional studies based on ill-controlled variations

Suggested Citation

  • Denis Cogneau & Yannick Dupraz, 2017. "Institutions historiques et développement économique en Afrique. Une revue sélective et critique de travaux récents," Working Papers hal-01517144, HAL.
    • Handle: RePEc:hal:wpaper:hal-01517144
    Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-01517144
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    Keywords

    Colonization; Africa; Ethnicity; Development; Ethnicité; Développement; Institutions; Afrique; Colonisation;
    All these keywords.

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