Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • January 2023
  • Article
  • African Affairs

Inequality Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa from Precolonial Times to the Present

By: Ewout Frankema, Michiel de Haas and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • Format:Print
  • | Pages:38
ShareBar

Abstract

While current levels of economic inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa receive ample attention from academics and policymakers, we know little about the long-run evolution of inequality in the region. Even the new and influential ‘global inequality literature’ that is associated with scholars like Thomas Piketty, Branko Milanovic and Walter Scheidel, has had little to say about Africa so far. This paper is a first effort to fill that void. Building on recent research in African economic history and utilizing the new theoretical frameworks of the global inequality literature, we chart the long-run patterns and drivers of inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa from the slave trades to the present. Our analysis dismantles mainstream narratives about the colonial roots of persistent high inequality in post-colonial Africa, and shows that existing inequality concepts and theories need further calibration to account, amongst others, for the role of African slavery in the long-run emergence and vanishing of inequality regimes.

Keywords

Economic Inequalty; Equality and Inequality; History; Africa

Citation

Frankema, Ewout, Michiel de Haas, and Marlous van Waijenburg. "Inequality Regimes in Sub-Saharan Africa from Precolonial Times to the Present." African Affairs 122, no. 486 (January 2023): 57–94.
  • Read Now

About The Author

Marlous van Waijenburg

Business, Government and the International Economy
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • Summer 2023
    • Business History Review

    (Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly

    By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg
    • August 2023
    • Economic History Review

    What About the Race Between Technology and Education in the Global South? Comparing Skill-premiums in Colonial Africa and Asia

    By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
    • 2023
    • Journal of African History

    Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa

    By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
More from the Authors
  • (Un)principled Agents: Monitoring Loyalty after the End of the Royal African Company Monopoly By: Anne Ruderman and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • What About the Race Between Technology and Education in the Global South? Comparing Skill-premiums in Colonial Africa and Asia By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
  • Bridging the Gap with the ‘New’ Economic History of Africa By: Ewout Frankema and Marlous van Waijenburg
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College