Divide and Rule or the Rule of the Divided? Evidence from Africa

77 Pages Posted: 5 Jul 2011 Last revised: 16 Jun 2023

See all articles by Stelios Michalopoulos

Stelios Michalopoulos

Brown University - Department of Economics; Brown University

Elias Papaioannou

London Business School; Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)

Multiple version iconThere are 3 versions of this paper

Date Written: June 2011

Abstract

We investigate jointly the importance of contemporary country-level institutional structures and local ethnic-specific pre-colonial institutions in shaping comparative regional development in Africa. We utilize information on the spatial distribution of African ethnicities before colonization and regional variation in contemporary economic performance, as proxied by satellite light density at night. We exploit the fact that political boundaries across the African landscape partitioned ethnic groups in different countries subjecting identical cultures to different country-level institutions. Our regression discontinuity estimates reveal that differences in countrywide institutional arrangements across the border do not explain differences in economic performance within ethnic groups. In contrast, we document a strong association between pre-colonial ethnic institutional traits and contemporary regional development. While this correlation does not necessarily identify a causal relationship, this result obtains conditional on country fixed-effects, controlling for other ethnic traits and when we focus on pairs of contiguous ethnic homelands.

Suggested Citation

Michalopoulos, Stelios and Papaioannou, Elias, Divide and Rule or the Rule of the Divided? Evidence from Africa (June 2011). NBER Working Paper No. w17184, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1879045

Stelios Michalopoulos (Contact Author)

Brown University - Department of Economics ( email )

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Brown University ( email )

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Elias Papaioannou

London Business School ( email )

Sussex Place
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London, London NW1 4SA
United Kingdom

Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) ( email )

London
United Kingdom

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