Metropolitan Blueprints of Colonial Taxation? Lessons from Fiscal Capacity Building in British and French Africa, c. 1880-1940 (original) (raw)
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This paper contributes to a growing literature linking pre-colonial institutions and current development in Africa. Research in this area attributes correlations between precolonial institutions and current development to ‘indirect rule’, in which colonial rule depended on pre-colonial African regimes. However, the structure and practice of indirect rule varied widely. This paper uses a new data set of local government revenue and expenditure to establish a more precise connection between indigenous states, colonial institutions, and contemporary development outcomes. These data are paired with anthropological records on pre-colonial states to assess the extent to which the fiscal capacity of local government units reflected pre-colonial state centralization. Finally, it suggests mechanisms by which late colonial local governments may have influenced post-independence development outcomes.