Calendrier du 11 juin 2024
Applied Economics Lunch Seminar
Du 11/06/2024 de 12:30 à 13:30
Salle R2.20
MO Zhexun ()
Enforcing Coercive Colonial Rule: Evidence from Head Tax and Blood Tax Levies in French West Africa
écrit avec Denis Cogneau
Colonial states were described either as overwhelming Leviathans or as administration on the cheap. We study two pillars of colonial rule in French West Africa: head tax collection and military conscription, using novel data at district level between 1919 and 1949. The compliance to head tax was strikingly high, and targets of military recruitment were met without difficulty. Higher tax rates were set in more affluent districts: more densely populated, closer to ports, with railways and producing cash crops. No such pattern applied to conscription, most likely because the labor drain was seen as small everywhere. Evidence suggests that tax increases were a source of conflict between colonizers and colonized. During the Great Depression, tax rates were kept stable and military recruitment was decreased, yet districts exporting cash crops whose prices had collapsed were not differentially treated. Likewise, the large drought that affected districts in the Sahel did not trigger any tax rebates or any lightening of forced recruitment. Colonial states were quite effective in enforcing their rule and not entirely blind to local conditions, yet were not able, if even willing, to fine-tune their policies over time.