Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/339034 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
African Economic History Working Paper Series No. 85
Publisher: 
African Economic History Network (AEHN), s.l.
Abstract: 
During the Scramble for Africa, European colonization relied on private concessionary companies that established distinctive institutional frameworks. This paper provides new empirical evidence suggesting that colonial corporate governance produced divergent long-run development trajectories. I examine two comparable corporations that exploited the Central African Copperbelt: the Union Miniere du Haut-Katanga (UMHK) in the Belgian Congo and the Rhokana Corporation (RC) in Northern Rhodesia. The UMHK's "Labour Stabilization Programs" incentivized permanent family resettlement, fostering community stability and urban agglomeration economies, policies absent at the RC. Using two spatial regression discontinuity designs, I show that the UMHK concession generated higher urbanization rates and persistent improvements in wealth, education, and health outcomes today, along with enduring positive effects on women's empowerment and decision-making power over household spending. In contrast, I find no comparable evidence for the RC, and a spatial difference-in-discontinuities analysis indicates the developmental divergence is driven by UMHK's labour policies.
Subjects: 
Colonialism
Concessions
Corporate governance
Long-run development
Urbanization
JEL: 
N37
O43
R11
ISBN: 
978-91-981477-9-7
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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