AEHN: Africa Economic History Network

Includes

• African Commodity Trade Database. The African Commodity Trade Database (ACTD) aims to stimulate and deepen research on African and global economic history. The database provides export and import series at product level for more than two and a half centuries of African trade (1737-2010). The ACTD consists of three main parts which are continuously updated as we retrieve additional sources. Currently data for the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth century is available below. The data from the ACTD is freely available as long as reference is made to: Frankema, Ewout, Jeffrey Williamson and Pieter Woltjer. “An Economic Rationale for the West African Scramble? The Commercial Transition and the Commodity Price Boom of 1835-1885.” The Journal of Economic History 78, no. 1 (2018): 231-267.

• Trade database  (latest versions)

  Part I – Quantities and official prices, 1737-1808: ACTD_1737t1808_volumes_v1_0

  Part II – Prices, quantities and values, 1808-1939: ACTD_1808t1939_database_v1_3 [updated]

  Supplemental material

  • – Notes on the ACTD: ACTD_1808t1939_notes

  • – British Customs Records, 1697-1808, unprocessed: ACTD_1697t1808_raw_data

• Bibliography on Colonial African Economic History, until 1972

  This file contains over 1800 notecards giving citations on colonial African economic history as collected up to 1972. The initial cards list the journals from which citations were transcribed, along with the time frame of documentation. The entries are color-coded by discipline, and the initial card identifies the color-coding. The cards themselves are created by Prof. Patrick Manning (University of Pittsburgh) and 5 history graduate students. The cards are not in any specific order, so one needs to scan through them on a pot-luck basis. That said, all cards in this large file can be freely copied and exchanged.

• Africa-Asia Occupational Wage Database, 1870-2010

  The Africa-Asia Occupational Wage Database (AAOWD) aims to deepen research on African and Asian economic history. The database provides long-term wage series of indigenous male urban workers in six occupations: labourers, carpenters, electricians, car mechanics, entry-level clerks and bank tellers. The wage series are available for 34 African countries and 16 Asian countries and can be used to construct and compare skill-premiums for the period 1870-2010. An extensive description of the sources, key features, and consistency of the data is provided in the appendix of the paper: Frankema, E., & Van Waijenburg, M. (2019). The Great Convergence. Skill Accumulation and Mass Education in Africa and Asia, 1870-2010. CEPR Discussion Paper No. 14150. Please cite this paper if you use (parts of) the AAOWD.

  DATA: Africa-Asia Occupational Wage Database – AAOWD v1.0 

• GDP Series Anglophone Africa, 1885-2008

• African Population Database 1850-1960

• Asset data (tax inventories, opgaafrollen), Cape Colony 1663-1753

• Data on wages, prices and welfare ratio in British Africa

• Data on African heights in British East Africa