The Impact of a ‘Colonizing River’

Colonial Railways and the Indigenous Population in French Algeria at the turn of the Century

Bibliographic Data

ID13028246
AuthorsLaura Maravall (0000-0002-2400-2209, corresponding author)
Year2019
Volume34
Issue1
Pages16-47
Publication date2019-01-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomic History of Developing Regions (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2078-0389 • E-ISSN: 2078-0397
PublisherTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/20780389.2019.1581059
OpenAlexW2931262470
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited20

Colonial railways eased settlement and altered the economic activity of the surrounding areas. Thus, they provide a good testing ground for the impact of settlement expansion. By taking advantage of unique territorial population data and digitized historical colonization maps in the Constantine region, this paper assesses the effect of railways on the indigenous population in Algeria during the colonial years. The indigenous population growth and density are first analysed in a cross-section multivariate regression framework that permits controlling for various forms of settlement. As a robustness check to the results, the paper implements differences-in-differences combined with a propensity score matching methodology that allow analysing the impact in relatively isolated areas where the infrastructure arrived later. The main conclusion of the paper is that, if settlement did have a positive effect on the indigenous population growth – as many historians tend to argue – it was channelled through railways only after 1900, when cereal cultivation improved, and the trade policy changed. The lack of significance before the 1900s is most likely explained by geographic-specific factors that limited the potential effects of railways

Archaeology · Biology · Colonialism · Colonization · Economic geography · Economics · Economy · Geography · Human settlement · Indigenous · Population · Population growth · Robustness (evolution · Settlement (finance · Sociology · Culture, Economy, and Development Studies · Demography · Historical Economic and Social Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Ecology

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