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SUMMARY:Smith Goes to Sokoto: How Close was Precolonial Northern Nigeria t
 o Modern Economic Growth?’ - Dr Tom Westland (Wageningen University)
DTSTART:20260309T170000Z
DTEND:20260309T183000Z
UID:TALK243502@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Gareth Austin
DESCRIPTION:Modern economic growth primarily involves the shifting of work
 ers from agricultural to non-agricultural occupations. The probability tha
 t they will do so is a function of two key variables: whether or not agric
 ultural productivity is high enough to allow farmers to be 'released' from
  agricultural occupations without jeopardising food security\, and whether
  or not labour productivity in non-agricultural activities is high enough 
 relative to labour productivity in agriculture to make the sectoral switch
  worthwhile. Estimating agricultural and non-agricultural productivity is 
 therefore crucial to understanding the conditions in which structural chan
 ge can occur. This paper offers new estimates of sectoral labour productiv
 ity in early colonial Northern Nigeria (c.1905-c.1925)\, using district-le
 vel archival tax records to estimate the output of workers in a number of 
 economically important sectors\, such as arable\, livestock\, textiles\, m
 etalworking\, and retail and wholesale trade. It also compares Northern Ni
 gerian land productivity to other benchmark economies using the standard c
 alories/hectare measure. The paper suggests that Northern Nigerian arable 
 agriculture was relatively productive in international terms\, which can h
 elp to explain its high degree of urbanisation and rural handicraft indust
 ry\, though the gap between non-agricultural productivity and agricultural
  productivity was quite high\, at least in the main urban centres.
LOCATION:Audit Room\, King's College\, Cambridge: to receive zoom link ple
 ase subscribe at https://lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscribe/history-global-ec
 onomic-history at https://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/event-series/global-economic-
 history
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