Becker, Sascha O. and Ludgar Woessmann. “Was Weber Wrong? A Human Capital Theory of Protestant Economic History.”, 2009, vol. 124, issue 2, pages 531-596.Miles, William. Hausaland Divided: Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1994.1 Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies: A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon Alexander Lee Stanford University Kenneth A. Schultz Stanford University ABSTRACT Colonial institutions are thought to be an important determinate of post-independence levels of political stability, economic growth, and public goods provision. In particular, many scholars have suggested that British institutions and culture are more conducive to growth and poverty alleviation than those of France or other colonizers. Systematic tests of this hypothesis have plagued by unobserved heterogeneity among nations due to variable pre- and post-colonial histories. To deal with this problem, we focus on the West African nation of Cameroon, which includes regions colonized by both Britain and France. Taking advantage of the artificial nature of the former colonial boundary, we use it as a discontinuity within a national demographic survey. We show that rural areas on the British side of discontinuity have higher levels of wealth and local public provision of improved water sources. Results for urban areas and centrally-provided public goods show no such effect, suggesting that post-independence policies also play a role in shaping outcomes. We are grateful to Rachel Stein and Luke Condra for assistance with ArcGIS and to Claire Adida for assistance in translating the survey instrument.2 Introduction The men who built the British Empire did so with the conviction that they were doing those they conquered a favor. They argued that the institutional package that they brought to the colonies—David Livingston’s “Commerce, Christianity and Civilization” —would ultimately lead to a higher standard of living and quality of government than that provided by the institutions they destroyed (Livingston 1868). While contemporary scholars no longer see colonialism as unambiguously positive, they do agree on its importance. A series of quantitative studies, both within and across nations, have linked colonial-era policies and institutions to post-independence variation in economic growth (Acemoglu, Johnson and Robinson 2001, LaPorta, Lopez-de-Silanes, Shleifer and Vishny [LLSV], 1999), public goods provision (Banerjee and Iyer 2005, Iyer 2007), democracy (Lipset 1993, Weiner 1987), and corruption (Treisman 2000). One strand of this literature suggests that colonization by the British led to better outcomes than colonization by the French or by the smaller colonial powers, because of either the adaptability of British legal institutions to the market economy or the higher levels of personal freedom provided by British culture (Hayak 1960, Lipset 1993, North 2005, LLSV 1998). The argument has become a common one, and dummy variables for colonial background have become a common feature of large-N studies in comparative politics. One major shortcoming of such studies is that they conceal a large amount of unobserved heterogeneity in 1) the preexisting conditions of the areas colonized, 2) the institutions imposed by the colonizer, and 3) the post-independence political histories of these countries. As such, any estimation of “colonizer effects” may be biased, and this bias could be particularly strong with respect to the British Empire, the largest, oldest, and most heterogeneous of the imperial units. It3 could be, for example, that the British managed to take the “plum” colonies, which would have experienced better political and economic outcomes regardless of who colonized them. To identify the effects of colonial legacy, we focus on one case, the West African nation of Cameroon. Originally colonized by Germany, Cameroon was divided between Britain and France during World War I, and the two powers implemented widely divergent colonial policies in their separate zones. The two areas were only reunited at independence in 1960, and despite a strong policy of centralization, they retain separate legal and education systems and a strong attachment to the language and culture of their respective colonizers. A comparison of these regions thus permits an excellent test of the colonizer influence hypothesis. The regions became British and French colonies due to an exogenous shock unrelated to local conditions (i.e., the German defeat in WW I), and they have similar post-independence histories. And while there might be differences in preexisting conditions across these regions, these differences are unlikely to be pronounced at the arbitrary internal boundary between them. Hence, we can use a regression discontinuity research design to identify the effects of colonial legacy. The use of a single case keeps us from examining within-colonizer variation, but we will argue that the strategies pursued by the British and French and Cameroon present a “hard case” for the hypothesis of British superiority. A comparison of communities along the former colonial border shows that rural households on the British side have higher levels of wealth and are more likely to have access to improved sources of water (a locally provided public good). These results do not hold for urban areas or for centrally-provided public goods like education and roads, suggesting that the effect of colonial-era differences can be attenuated by post-colonial policies. The exact origin of the British advantage are impossible to determine with certainty, but we hypothesize that it is caused4 by a combination of “hard legacies” (lack of forced labor, more autonomous local institutions) and “soft legacies” (common law, English culture, Protestantism). The relative role of these two types of influences is a fruitful topic for future study. Previous Literature Cross Country Studies A number of distinguished scholars have argued that British colonial origin is associated with positive outcomes, though they have not always agreed on what these outcomes are or by what mechanism British colonialism produces them. The most influential strand has focused on economic growth and argues that growth is in part determined by the legal system bequeathed by the colonizer (Hayek 1960, North 2005, LLSV 1998). The effect of legal system on development