[Theme]African Economic Development in the Long Term: the Land-Extensive Path and After, c.1450 - Present

[Date & Time] March 27 2026, 10:30

[Location]Room 728, Mingde Main Building, Zhongguancun Campus

[Speaker]Gareth Austin

[Brief Introduction]Professor Gareth Austin is Director of Research at King’s College, Cambridge, and Emeritus Professor of Economic History at the University of Cambridge. He graduated from the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge in 1978 and obtained his PhD in Economic History from the University of Birmingham in 1984. He has previously taught at the University of Ghana, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva.

A leading international economic historian, Professor Austin’s research has reshaped the narrative of developmental history across Africa and the Global South. His work on the transition from slavery to free labour in the Ashanti region was awarded the Coggan Prize, and he developed the de‑Europeanised comparative method. Together with Kaoru Sugihara, he proposed the theory of labour‑intensive industrialisation, which offers a key framework for understanding developmental pathways in Asia and Africa. Elected to the Academia Europaea in 2012, he holds a prominent position in global economic history.

[Abstract]Africa south of the Sahara is often described as historically poor and stagnant. This lecture challenges that view in three ways.First, the narrative of perpetual poverty is overstated: evidence shows economic development before colonial rule and measurable growth in both colonial and post-colonial periods, including a continent-wide boom from about 1995 to 2013.Second, African economies long followed a “land-extensive” development path shaped by abundant land but scarce labour and capital, favouring land rotation, hoe cultivation and communal land tenure. In the last century this pattern has shifted toward agricultural intensification and urbanization.Finally, the lecture highlights major differences across Africa, especially between “settler” and “peasant” colonies and their contrasting historical trajectories.