Edited Volumes

Migration in Africa: shifting patterns of mobility, 19th to 21st centuries 

Co-edited with Ewout Frankema 

Published in 2022 by Routledge (Taylor & Francis) 

Available in hardcover and paperback, as well as an open-access e-book

Blog summary (AEHN) here


Journal Articles

"Income inequality and export-oriented commercialization in colonial Africa:  Evidence from six countries'  

With Ellen Hillbom, Jutta Bolt and Federico Tadei

Published in the Economic History Review (early online view)

AEHN working paper (2021) here and CEPR working paper (2021) here (unfortunately behind a paywall) 

Replication package here


'Inequality regimes in Africa from pre-colonial times to the present'

Published in African Affairs (2023, Vol 122, No. 486: 57-94) 

Coverage in The Economist here

Blog summary (LSE Africa) here and (AEHN) here


'Reconstructing income inequality in a colonial cash crop economy: five social tables for Uganda, 1925–1965'

Published in the European Review of Economic History (2022, Vol 26, No. 2: 255-283)

Blog summary (AEHN) here


'The Failure of Cotton Imperialism in Africa: Seasonal Constraints and Contrasting Outcomes in French West Africa and British Uganda'

Published in the Journal of Economic History (2021, Vol. 81, No. 4: 1098-1136)

Replication files here


'Educational gender inequality in Sub-Saharan Africa: a long-term perspective'

With Joerg Baten, Elisabeth Kempter and Felix Meier zu Selhausen

Published in Population and Development Review (2021, Vol. 47, No. 3: 813-849)

Coverage on Alice Evans' blog here

Blog summaries (IUSSP) here and (Africapolis) here

Some post-publication reflections here


'Moving beyond colonial control? Economic forces and shifting migration from Ruanda-Urundi to Buganda, 1920–60'

Published in the Journal of African History (2019, Vol. 60, No. 3, pp. 379-406)

A correction to Table 1 was published in 2021 in a Corrigendum by the Journal of African History (Vol. 62, No. 1: 179-80)

Won the Best Publication Award 2020, of the Wageningen School of Social Sciences (WASS).  

Blog summary (AEHN) here


'Gender, ethnicity and unequal opportunity in colonial Uganda: European influences, African realities, and the pitfalls of parish register data' 

With Ewout Frankema

Published in the Economic History Review (2018, Vol. 71, No. 3: 965-994)

Blog summary (EHS: The Long Run) here


'Measuring rural welfare in colonial Africa: did Uganda's smallholders thrive?',  

Published in the Economic History Review (2017, Vol. 70, No. 2: 605-31)

Won the 2019 T.S. Ashton prize of the Economic History Society.  

Blog summary (AEHN) here.


Book Chapters

'Black Africans in Cape Town, 1890-1939'

With Nobungcwele Mbem

Chapter 9 (pp. 219-248) in Johan Fourie (editor), Quantitative history and uncharted people: case studies from the South African past (Bloomsbury, 2023)

'The age of intra-African migration: a synthesis"

With Ewout Frankema

Chapter 1 (pp. 3-34)in Migration in Africa: shifting patterns of mobility, 19th to 21st centuries (Routledge, 2022) 

Access to open-access e-book here


'Cash-crop migration in East and West Africa: rise, transformation and decline'

With Emiliano Travieso

Chapter 11 (pp. 231-255) in Migration in Africa: shifting patterns of mobility, 19th to 21st centuries (Routledge, 2022)

Access to open-access e-book here


'Epilogue: Migration and Development: Lessons from Africa’s Long-Run Experience'

With Ewout Frankema

Chapter 17  (pp. 379-389) in Migration in Africa: shifting patterns of mobility, 19th to 21st centuries (Routledge, 2022)

Access to open-access e-book here


Ph.D. Thesis 

Rural livelihoods and agricultural commercialization in colonial Uganda: conjunctures of external influences and local realities

Defended at Wageningen University in 2017 (cum laude)

Finalist of the  2019 Gino Luzzatto Dissertation Prize of the European Historical Economics Society

The full manuscript can be downloaded here