Imperial Aid and Tax Mobilization in Late Colonial Africa

In 1929, the British Empire launched a four-decade development initiative to modernize colonial economies without self-government. Known as the Colonial Development and Welfare Fund, the program required colonial administrations to raise local taxes to cofinance development projects. This article shows that imperial aid expanded colonial taxation only after organizational reforms in the Colonial Service screened in officials who shared the metropole’s developmental agenda and made tax mobilization incentive-compatible with career advancement. Drawing on original data from 12 African colonies and extensive archival evidence, I show that aid increased tax revenues when patronage-based governors were replaced by career officers and promotion within the Colonial Service became conditional on fiscal performance. These findings highlight how bureaucratic incentives shaped the effectiveness of imperial aid and offer a new explanation for the expansion of fiscal capacity in late colonial Africa.