The persistent legacy: Colonial railroads and agricultural productivity in Africa

This paper examines the long-term impacts of colonial-period railroads on agricultural productivity in sub-Saharan Africa. Using granular data from 22 countries, we show that historically rail-connected regions remain more productive today. We also find that these regions are more integrated into modern road-based urban markets. We interpret this pattern as evidence of path-dependent spatial equilibrium, where early investment in the transportation network helped coordinate the location of economic activities in the post-colonial period. However, the evidence does not rule out the possibility that colonial railways and the modern road network both followed persistent favorable geographic fundamentals. More broadly, the findings show how early transport investment can leave durable effects on rural development by shaping the geography of market access.