Pub Date : 2020-01-28DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1694408
K. Rönnbäck
ABSTRACT Trade on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century was dominated by non-monetized barter trade. In this paper, a large dataset of barter transactions are used to study the social embeddedness of the trade. The data shows that prestige goods such as alcohol to a disproportionate degree were exchanged for other prestige goods such as gold. Guns – but also cheaper types of textiles – were to a disproportionate degree exchanged for slaves in particular. The evidence thus helps to shed light on the social valuation of various imported commodities on the Gold Coast at this time.
{"title":"The business of barter on the pre-colonial Gold Coast","authors":"K. Rönnbäck","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1694408","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1694408","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Trade on the Gold Coast in the eighteenth century was dominated by non-monetized barter trade. In this paper, a large dataset of barter transactions are used to study the social embeddedness of the trade. The data shows that prestige goods such as alcohol to a disproportionate degree were exchanged for other prestige goods such as gold. Guns – but also cheaper types of textiles – were to a disproportionate degree exchanged for slaves in particular. The evidence thus helps to shed light on the social valuation of various imported commodities on the Gold Coast at this time.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"123 - 142"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1694408","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46269764","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2020.1711620
G. Verhoef
Frank Stuart Jones was a great Economic Historian, scholar and mentor – intellectually vigorous and brilliant – extremely well read. He was born in Timperley, near Altrincham, Manchester. His final...
{"title":"Frank Stuart Jones, 29 March 1933–19 October 2019","authors":"G. Verhoef","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2020.1711620","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2020.1711620","url":null,"abstract":"Frank Stuart Jones was a great Economic Historian, scholar and mentor – intellectually vigorous and brilliant – extremely well read. He was born in Timperley, near Altrincham, Manchester. His final...","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"1 - 2"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2020.1711620","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45476290","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1633304
T. Andrabi, S. Bharat, Michael Kuehlwein
ABSTRACT There is a large literature on the impact of railways on price convergence. Ignored, however, is the role of another potentially important network: post offices. By providing timely information on arbitrage and trade opportunities, post offices could also contribute to market integration. This paper tests that proposition in the context of British Indian grain markets. Rice and wheat markets in colonial India saw a broad convergence in prices during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Research suggests that railways mattered, but are capable of explaining only some of that convergence. This paper tests whether the spread of post offices also contributed to that price convergence. We find that it did, though the effects shrink in the presence of railways. Estimates suggest that between 1881 and 1911, post office growth reduced price dispersion by 20–24% of the total decline in Indian grain price dispersion. The precise mechanism through which these effects operate, however, is less clear.
{"title":"Post offices and British Indian grain price convergence","authors":"T. Andrabi, S. Bharat, Michael Kuehlwein","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1633304","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1633304","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT There is a large literature on the impact of railways on price convergence. Ignored, however, is the role of another potentially important network: post offices. By providing timely information on arbitrage and trade opportunities, post offices could also contribute to market integration. This paper tests that proposition in the context of British Indian grain markets. Rice and wheat markets in colonial India saw a broad convergence in prices during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Research suggests that railways mattered, but are capable of explaining only some of that convergence. This paper tests whether the spread of post offices also contributed to that price convergence. We find that it did, though the effects shrink in the presence of railways. Estimates suggest that between 1881 and 1911, post office growth reduced price dispersion by 20–24% of the total decline in Indian grain price dispersion. The precise mechanism through which these effects operate, however, is less clear.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"23 - 49"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1633304","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42325412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1669443
K. Button
ABSTRACT To facilitate an organized withdrawal from its African territories in the 1960s, the UK authorities undertook studies of the economic potential of each. What has been little studied is the nature and impacts of these exercises on subsequent policy. This paper looks at two such studies that examined ways existing ‘common markets’ in East and Central Africa could be retained after independence, and further developed. The institutions and structures governing the territories differed, one a common market and the other a fuller federation, as did the bodies conducting the analysis, one an official commission requiring public recommendations, and the other an advisory group to a senior government minister. The paper offers insights as to the way economists viewed common markets at the time, how they sought to quantify their economic benefits, and the ways in which these benefits were distributed across member states. It also considers the types of economic policy recommendations that were made and the reaction of the British authorities and the colonial politicians to them.
{"title":"Common markets and the decolonization of ‘British Africa’: The role of economics and economists","authors":"K. Button","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1669443","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1669443","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT To facilitate an organized withdrawal from its African territories in the 1960s, the UK authorities undertook studies of the economic potential of each. What has been little studied is the nature and impacts of these exercises on subsequent policy. This paper looks at two such studies that examined ways existing ‘common markets’ in East and Central Africa could be retained after independence, and further developed. The institutions and structures governing the territories differed, one a common market and the other a fuller federation, as did the bodies conducting the analysis, one an official commission requiring public recommendations, and the other an advisory group to a senior government minister. The paper offers insights as to the way economists viewed common markets at the time, how they sought to quantify their economic benefits, and the ways in which these benefits were distributed across member states. It also considers the types of economic policy recommendations that were made and the reaction of the British authorities and the colonial politicians to them.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"50 - 70"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1669443","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48208486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2020.1734312
S. Naidu
ABSTRACT In this article I discuss the micro-economics of American slavery in light of recent research on monopsonistic labour markets. I argue that the defining characteristic of coerced labour, the threat of violence to prevent voluntary quits from a job, can be helpfully understood by contrasting it with free labour markets that are riven with imperfect competition and agency problems. American slavery looks closer to the textbook competitive model of labour markets than does free labour.
{"title":"American slavery and labour market power","authors":"S. Naidu","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2020.1734312","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2020.1734312","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this article I discuss the micro-economics of American slavery in light of recent research on monopsonistic labour markets. I argue that the defining characteristic of coerced labour, the threat of violence to prevent voluntary quits from a job, can be helpfully understood by contrasting it with free labour markets that are riven with imperfect competition and agency problems. American slavery looks closer to the textbook competitive model of labour markets than does free labour.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"22 - 3"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2020.1734312","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46264502","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-11-14DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1671187
R. Simson
ABSTRACT While interest in African economic history has grown rapidly in recent years, the continent’s post-colonial past remains understudied. This is at least in part because of the decline and fragmentation in the publication of economic statistics after decolonization, which has limited the type and breadth of quantitative analysis that can be undertaken. Nonetheless, this note argues that there are comparatively untapped post-colonial data sources that could enrich the study of the continent's economic history. The note surveys some of these sources and data repositories and provides advice, based on the author’s own experiences, on how to utilize them.
{"title":"Statistical sources and African post-colonial economic history: Notes from the (digital) archives","authors":"R. Simson","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1671187","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1671187","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT While interest in African economic history has grown rapidly in recent years, the continent’s post-colonial past remains understudied. This is at least in part because of the decline and fragmentation in the publication of economic statistics after decolonization, which has limited the type and breadth of quantitative analysis that can be undertaken. Nonetheless, this note argues that there are comparatively untapped post-colonial data sources that could enrich the study of the continent's economic history. The note surveys some of these sources and data repositories and provides advice, based on the author’s own experiences, on how to utilize them.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"35 1","pages":"143 - 154"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1671187","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45775850","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1684691
E. Akyeampong, H. Fofack
On 16–17 November 2017, the Africa–Asia Initiative at Harvard University, a consortium of eight institutions and programmes with a focus on Africa–Asia collaborations, held a twoday conference at the Harvard Center Shanghai in China. With the theme ‘Africa–Asia Connections: Bridging Past, Present, and Future’, the conference brought together academic researchers, policymakers, and individuals from the private sector for stimulating discussions on Africa’s engagement with India, Japan, and China through the lenses of migration, trade, and aid; and environment, infrastructure, and industry. The three papers in this special issue were first presented at the 2017 conference and provide a window onto some of the discussions at the conference, this one with a focus on ‘Africa and China: Emerging Patterns of Engagement.’ In 2009 China emerged as Africa’s leading trading partner and also surpassed the World Bank as Africa’s top lender. While this may have caught some by surprise, Austin Strange in his contribution points out that this marked seven decades of China’s engagement with Africa. China’s phenomenal rise to become the second largest economy in the world after the United States intersected with the ‘Africa Rising’ story between 2002 and 2013, when six of the world’s fastest growing economies were in Africa – Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda. Africa’s rise was driven by a global commodity boom, especially demand from China and India for oil and other commodities, and net resources inflows in the post-HIPC era. The slump in the commodity boom in 2014 with the slowing down of economic growth in Asia and Europe, aggravated by developments such as Brexit and America’s trade wars under the Trump government, have underscored the long-standing desire for African economies to diversify from commodity exports and to deepen South-South trade, which now accounts for over 50% of African trade, and intra-Africa trade. The signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement by 27 member countries of the African Union in Kigali in March 2018, and now by all 55 African countries, has given substance to the last-stated objective and positioned what would be the world’s largest free trade area by number of participating countries when
{"title":"Special issue on ‘Africa and China: Emerging patterns of engagement’","authors":"E. Akyeampong, H. Fofack","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1684691","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1684691","url":null,"abstract":"On 16–17 November 2017, the Africa–Asia Initiative at Harvard University, a consortium of eight institutions and programmes with a focus on Africa–Asia collaborations, held a twoday conference at the Harvard Center Shanghai in China. With the theme ‘Africa–Asia Connections: Bridging Past, Present, and Future’, the conference brought together academic researchers, policymakers, and individuals from the private sector for stimulating discussions on Africa’s engagement with India, Japan, and China through the lenses of migration, trade, and aid; and environment, infrastructure, and industry. The three papers in this special issue were first presented at the 2017 conference and provide a window onto some of the discussions at the conference, this one with a focus on ‘Africa and China: Emerging Patterns of Engagement.’ In 2009 China emerged as Africa’s leading trading partner and also surpassed the World Bank as Africa’s top lender. While this may have caught some by surprise, Austin Strange in his contribution points out that this marked seven decades of China’s engagement with Africa. China’s phenomenal rise to become the second largest economy in the world after the United States intersected with the ‘Africa Rising’ story between 2002 and 2013, when six of the world’s fastest growing economies were in Africa – Angola, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Chad, Mozambique, and Rwanda. Africa’s rise was driven by a global commodity boom, especially demand from China and India for oil and other commodities, and net resources inflows in the post-HIPC era. The slump in the commodity boom in 2014 with the slowing down of economic growth in Asia and Europe, aggravated by developments such as Brexit and America’s trade wars under the Trump government, have underscored the long-standing desire for African economies to diversify from commodity exports and to deepen South-South trade, which now accounts for over 50% of African trade, and intra-Africa trade. The signing of the African Continental Free Trade Agreement by 27 member countries of the African Union in Kigali in March 2018, and now by all 55 African countries, has given substance to the last-stated objective and positioned what would be the world’s largest free trade area by number of participating countries when","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"34 1","pages":"251 - 258"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1684691","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41804938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1678026
Yuan-Hsin Wang, U. Wissenbach
ABSTRACT Through investigating Kenya’s newly launched Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project, this article explores the impact of clientelism on mega-infrastructure projects. This research traces the initiation and implementation of this Chinese-financed and -constructed railway in Kenya, based on over 100 interviews and triangulated with media and policy reports on SGR. We argue that clientelism had mixed effects on holding project management and the government accountable, conditional on the inclusiveness of the patron–client network. In areas where local people and businesses were included in the patronage system, for instance as constituents or trade union members, the patron–client networks held the project management accountable. The patronage system was conducive to corruption and oligopoly when the system only included elites and excluded citizens/businesses. In most situations we found that China has played a less influential role in the politics around the construction management than is generally assumed. This paper provides new evidence to the debate around clientelism and development in Kenya, and the conditions when patronage systems work for and against accountability. Moreover, this research advances the ‘African agency’ position in Sino-African relations literature by showing not only whether but also how Kenyan actors exercise their agency in interaction with Chinese counterparts.
{"title":"Clientelism at work? A case study of Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway project","authors":"Yuan-Hsin Wang, U. Wissenbach","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1678026","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1678026","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Through investigating Kenya’s newly launched Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) project, this article explores the impact of clientelism on mega-infrastructure projects. This research traces the initiation and implementation of this Chinese-financed and -constructed railway in Kenya, based on over 100 interviews and triangulated with media and policy reports on SGR. We argue that clientelism had mixed effects on holding project management and the government accountable, conditional on the inclusiveness of the patron–client network. In areas where local people and businesses were included in the patronage system, for instance as constituents or trade union members, the patron–client networks held the project management accountable. The patronage system was conducive to corruption and oligopoly when the system only included elites and excluded citizens/businesses. In most situations we found that China has played a less influential role in the politics around the construction management than is generally assumed. This paper provides new evidence to the debate around clientelism and development in Kenya, and the conditions when patronage systems work for and against accountability. Moreover, this research advances the ‘African agency’ position in Sino-African relations literature by showing not only whether but also how Kenyan actors exercise their agency in interaction with Chinese counterparts.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"34 1","pages":"280 - 299"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1678026","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44649839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-09-02DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1669442
Liang Xu
ABSTRACT This paper examines ethnic Chinese garment production and Zulu women workers in Newcastle, South Africa - a former border town between white South Africa and the black KwaZulu homeland. The established scholarship, while providing useful explanations for the arrival of ethnic Chinese clothing factories and offering valid critiques of South Africa's industrial policies, pays little attention either to Chinese business practices or their long-term impact on Zulu women workers' lives. Using both archival and ethnographic evidence, this paper argues that in response to harsh business and socioeconomic conditions, both the ethnic Chinese industrialists and Zulu women workers have creatively utilized and reshaped existing familial arrangements to operate factories and maintain stability as a workforce. It highlights the ways in which capitalist production transplants, adapts, and refashions its material and cultural forms on the frontier. In many ways, Chinese industrialists and Zulu women are not passive products but active shapers of the industrial frontier.
{"title":"Factory, family, and industrial frontier: A socioeconomic study of Chinese clothing firms in Newcastle, South Africa","authors":"Liang Xu","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1669442","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1669442","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper examines ethnic Chinese garment production and Zulu women workers in Newcastle, South Africa - a former border town between white South Africa and the black KwaZulu homeland. The established scholarship, while providing useful explanations for the arrival of ethnic Chinese clothing factories and offering valid critiques of South Africa's industrial policies, pays little attention either to Chinese business practices or their long-term impact on Zulu women workers' lives. Using both archival and ethnographic evidence, this paper argues that in response to harsh business and socioeconomic conditions, both the ethnic Chinese industrialists and Zulu women workers have creatively utilized and reshaped existing familial arrangements to operate factories and maintain stability as a workforce. It highlights the ways in which capitalist production transplants, adapts, and refashions its material and cultural forms on the frontier. In many ways, Chinese industrialists and Zulu women are not passive products but active shapers of the industrial frontier.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"34 1","pages":"300 - 319"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1669442","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42090494","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-21DOI: 10.1080/20780389.2019.1618183
Austin Strange
ABSTRACT Fierce debate persists among policymakers and researchers about the nature and consequences of overseas Chinese state financing. Developing countries in Africa are a major focus of this controversy. However, popular accounts are often devoid of historical context, and instead emphasize China’s emergence as a prominent aid donor since 2000. This article combines evidence on historical and contemporary Chinese development projects to revisit popular claims about the motives and effects of Chinese government financing in Africa. I delineate Chinese development finance to Africa into four periods largely based on China’s own development trajectory: the early years; revolutionary diplomacy; post-reform, commercially oriented development; and the current period of global engagement. I then revisit three controversial narratives about Chinese development finance to Africa: the ‘rogue donor’ label; the socioeconomic and political consequences for African societies; and potential debt risks for African governments. In doing so, I also review recent evidence using the data discussed in this article. On balance, incorporating historical and recent evidence on Chinese state financing produces a mixed outlook with reasons for both optimism and concern. This contrasts with popular, highly opinionated views on Chinese financing that often extrapolate specific episodes into continent-wide narratives.
{"title":"Seven decades of Chinese state financing in Africa: Tempering current debates","authors":"Austin Strange","doi":"10.1080/20780389.2019.1618183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/20780389.2019.1618183","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Fierce debate persists among policymakers and researchers about the nature and consequences of overseas Chinese state financing. Developing countries in Africa are a major focus of this controversy. However, popular accounts are often devoid of historical context, and instead emphasize China’s emergence as a prominent aid donor since 2000. This article combines evidence on historical and contemporary Chinese development projects to revisit popular claims about the motives and effects of Chinese government financing in Africa. I delineate Chinese development finance to Africa into four periods largely based on China’s own development trajectory: the early years; revolutionary diplomacy; post-reform, commercially oriented development; and the current period of global engagement. I then revisit three controversial narratives about Chinese development finance to Africa: the ‘rogue donor’ label; the socioeconomic and political consequences for African societies; and potential debt risks for African governments. In doing so, I also review recent evidence using the data discussed in this article. On balance, incorporating historical and recent evidence on Chinese state financing produces a mixed outlook with reasons for both optimism and concern. This contrasts with popular, highly opinionated views on Chinese financing that often extrapolate specific episodes into continent-wide narratives.","PeriodicalId":54115,"journal":{"name":"Economic History of Developing Regions","volume":"34 1","pages":"259 - 279"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2019-08-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/20780389.2019.1618183","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48082118","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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