Data for: Who was colonized and when? A cross-country analysis of determinants

Abstract of associated article: The process of colonization has shaped the economic and demographic contours of the modern world. In this paper, we study the determinants of the occurrence and timing of colonization of non-European countries by Western European powers. Of particular interest is the role of early development measures that are known to be strong correlates of present-day levels of income. We show that non-European societies with longer histories of agriculture and statehood and higher levels of technology adoption in 1500 were less likely to be colonized, and tended to be colonized later if at all. We also find that proximity to the colonizing powers, disease environment, and latitude are significant predictors of the occurrence and timing of colonization, although their impacts are less robust to choice of country sample. Our models have high explanatory power, and their support for the significance of early development is robust to the use of alternative indicators of early development and disease, to the use of instruments to focus on the exogenous component of early development, and to the joint estimation of the colonization and timing equations to correct for potential selection bias.

关联研究论文摘要：殖民进程塑造了现代世界的经济与人口格局。本文旨在探究西欧列强对非欧洲国家实施殖民的决定因素，包括殖民是否发生以及殖民发生的时间节点。其中尤为值得关注的是早期发展水平指标的作用——现有研究表明，这类指标与当代收入水平存在显著相关性。研究结果显示，在1500年时拥有更长农业与国家建构历史、更高技术采纳水平的非欧洲社会，被殖民的概率更低；即便最终遭遇殖民，其殖民发生的时间也普遍更晚。本文同时发现，与殖民列强的地理邻近性、疾病环境以及纬度，均为殖民发生与否及殖民时序的显著预测因子，尽管其影响的稳健性会随国家样本的选取而有所降低。本研究构建的模型具有较高的解释力；无论采用早期发展与疾病的替代指标、使用工具变量聚焦早期发展的外生成分，还是通过联合估计殖民发生及时序方程以修正潜在的选择性偏差，模型均能稳健地验证早期发展水平的显著影响。