JinSeo.Cho - An Empirical Investigation of Precolonial and Colonial Legacies to Current Economic Growth Rates

<Abstract> We examine the effects of precolonial and colonial legacies on the current economic growth rates of ex-colonies. We find that precolonial legacies have significant positive relationships with current economic growth rates, as well as high model explanatory power. In contrast, colonial legacies have ambivalent effects on current economic growth rates. In the latter case, we capture the positive and negative significant relationships using immigration from the colonial ruler countries and colonial duration, respectively. Here, we find that Neo-European countries have benefited from the dominant positive effects of their colonial legacy, but that Sub-Saharan African ex-colonies are dominated by negative effects. In the case of Korea, the overall effect of the colonial legacy is not substantially different from zero, and the country's current high economic growth rate originates mainly from the precolonial legacy.