Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/242659 
Year of Publication: 
2016
Series/Report no.: 
African Economic History Working Paper Series No. 30/2016
Publisher: 
African Economic History Network (AEHN), s.l.
Abstract: 
Built mostly to support the early mining industry, the Cape Colony's railways reduced the cost of transport to the interior and increased labor productivity in the Colony from 1859 to 1905 by, we calculate, 30 percent. Little of the gains went to the state-owned company: the Cape parliament seems always to have seen the railways as a means to development. But the politically overrepresented western parts of the Colony gained much more than underrepresented areas like Basutoland or the Transkei. While boosting the economy, the railways also had distributional effects, with consequences for racial segregation in twentieth-century South Africa.
Subjects: 
railways
infrastructure
public goods
South Africa
social savings
JEL: 
H40
N40
O10
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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