Economic History of European Colonialism - British Empire

My work on colonialism, a big part of it developed in collaboration with Leigh Gardner of the London School of Economics and Ewout Frankema of Wageningen University, challenges interpretations that explain economic outcomes primarily through imperial intentions or exploitation. Instead, I/we argue that the effects of European rule emerged from the interaction of colonial institutions with local geography, indigenous economic structures, and market forces. Focusing on Asia and Africa, I/we show how limited state capacity often made local conditions decisive, producing diverse patterns of growth, inequality, and social change. A comparative perspective reveals that empire generated varied outcomes, underscoring diversity rather than uniformity in the economic consequences of colonial rule.