Table 3.

Table 3A. Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and Regional Development within African Countries
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)
Jurisdictional Hierarchy	0.3260*** (0.0852)	0.2794*** (0.0853)	0.2105*** (0.0554)	0.1766*** (0.0502)
Binary Political Centralization					0.5264*** (0.1492)	0.5049*** (0.1575)	0.3413*** (0.0898)	0.3086*** (0.0974)
Petty Chiefdoms									0.1538 (0.2108)	0.1442 (0.1739)	0.1815 (0.1542)	0.1361 (0.1218)
Paramount Chiefdoms									0.4258* (0.2432)	0.4914* (0.2541)	0.3700** (0.1628)	0.3384** (0.1612)
Pre-Colonial States									1.1443*** (0.2762)	0.8637*** (0.2445)	0.6809*** (0.1641)	0.5410*** (0.1486)
Adjusted R-squared	0.409	0.540	0.400	0.537	0.597	0.661	0.593	0.659	0.413	0.541	0.597	0.661
Observations	682	682	682	682	682	682	682	682	682	682	682	682
Country Fixed Effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Location Controls	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Geographic Controls	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Population Density	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes

Table 3B. Pre-colonial Ethnic Institutions and Regional Development within African Countries Intensive Margin
	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)
Jurisdictional Hierarchy	0.3279*** (0.1240)	0.3349*** (0.1120)	0.1651** (0.0705)	0.1493** (0.0729)
Binary Political Centralization					0.4819** (0.2386)	0.6594*** (0.2090)	0.2649** (0.1234)	0.2949** (0.1394)
Petty Chiefdoms									0.1065 (0.2796)	0.1048 (0.2363)	0.0987 (0.1791)	0.0135 (0.1733)
Paramount Chiefdoms									0.2816 (0.3691)	0.6253* (0.3373)	0.2255 (0.2261)	0.2374 (0.2392)
Pre-Colonial States									1.2393*** (0.3416)	0.9617*** (0.3224)	0.5972*** (0.2226)	0.4660** (0.2208)
Adjusted R-squared	0.424	0.562	0.416	0.562	0.638	0.671	0.636	0.671	0.431	0.564	0.639	0.672
Observations	517	517	517	517	517	517	517	517	517	517	517	517
Country Fixed Effects	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Location Controls	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Geographic Controls	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	Yes
Population Density	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes

Table 3 reports within-country OLS estimates associating regional development with pre-colonial ethnic institutions. In Panel A the dependent variable is the log (0.01 + light density at night from satellite) at the ethnicity-country level. In Panel B the dependent variable is the log (light density at night from satellite) at the ethnicity-country level; as such we exclude areas with zero luminosity. In columns (1)–(4) we measure pre-colonial ethnic institutions using Murdock’s (1967) jurisdictional hierarchy beyond the local community index. In columns (5)–(8) we use a binary political centralization index that is based on Murdock’s (1967) jurisdictional hierarchy beyond the local community variable. Following Gennaioli and Rainer (2007), this index takes on the value of zero for stateless societies and ethnic groups that were part of petty chiefdoms and one otherwise (for ethnicities that were organized as paramount chiefdoms and ethnicities that were part of large states). In columns (9)–(12) we augment the specification with three dummy variables that identify petty chiefdoms, paramount chiefdoms, and large states. The omitted category consists of stateless ethnic groups before colonization. All specifications include a set of country fixed effects (constants not reported).

In even-numbered columns we control for location and geography. The set of control variables includes the distance of the centroid of each ethnicity-country area from the respective capital city, the distance from the sea coast, the distance from the national border, log (1 + area under water (lakes, rivers, and other streams)), log (surface area), land suitability for agriculture, elevation, a malaria stability index, a diamond mine indicator, and an oil field indicator. The Data Appendix gives detailed variable definitions and data sources. Below the estimates we report in parentheses double-clustered standard errors at the country and the ethno-linguistic family dimensions.

^{***, **, and *}indicate statistical significance at the 1%, 5%, and 10% level, respectively.