The dynamics of inequality in a newly settled, pre-industrial society: The case of the Cape Colony
Stellenbosch Working Paper Series No. WP17/2009Publication date: 2009
Author(s):
[protected email address] (Department of Economics, University of Stellenbosch)
One reason for the relatively poor development performance of many countries around the world today may be the high levels of inequality during and after colonisation. Evidence from colonies in the Americas suggests that skewed initial factor endowments could create small elites that owned a disproportionate share of wealth, human capital and political power. The Cape Colony, founded in 1652 at the southern tip of Africa, presents a case where a mercantilist company (the Dutch East India Company) settles the land and establishes a unique set of institutions within which inequality and development evolve. This paper provides a long-run quantitative analysis of trends in asset-based inequality (using Principle Components' Analysis on tax inventories) during the seventeenth and eighteenth century, allowing, for the first time, a dynamic rather than static analysis of inequality trends in a newly settled and pre-industrial society over this period. While theory testing in other societies has been severely limited because of a scarcity of quantitative evidence, this study presents a history with evidence, enabling an evaluation of the Engerman-Sokoloff and other hypotheses.
JEL Classification:N37, D31, D63
Keywords:South Africa, settler societies, Kuznets, income distribution, asset index, institutions, mercantilism, Dutch East India Company
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27 Jun 2025 Another setback for the GNU, but oil markets breathe a little easierThis week was marked by heightened tensions both domestically and internationally. At home, friction intensified between the two largest parties in the Government of National Unity (GNU), the ANC and the DA, following the firing of one of the DA's deputy ministers. Internationally, the US conducted airstrikes on three Iranian nuclear facilities using...
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