A history of property rights and markets, of ownership and control in what economists call the factors of production; land, labour and capital. This is a description and analysis of how resources for production were mobilized during the development of Ghana's agricultural export economy.

Recognizing that land rights are ambiguous, negotiable and politically embedded, these case studies explore the long-term processes and recent changes in contemporary rural West Africa affecting the conversion of control over land into social and political capital and vice versa. They point to the colonial origins of what came to be viewed as ‘customary’ tenure and to the legal pluralism characterizing pre-colonial tenure arrangements. Furthermore, they show the spiritual and ritual importance of land that can be converted into political power and economic prerogatives, a dimension neglected by much of the recent literature. Analyses cover forest and savannah, state and segmentary societies, facilitating comparison and insights across the Anglo-Francophone divide.

"The unprecedented economic impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, together with school closures and inadequate government assistance, is pushing children into exploitative and dangerous child labor. As their parents have lost jobs or income due to the pandemic and associated lockdowns, many children have entered the workforce to help their families survive. Many work long, grueling hours for little or no pay, often under hazardous conditions. Some report violence, harassment, and pay theft. [This report] is based on interviews conducted from January to March 2021 with 81 children, ages 8-17, in Ghana, Nepal, and Uganda.... The report examines the impact of the pandemic on children's rights, including their rights to education, to an adequate standard of living, and to protection from child labor, as well as government responses."--Page 4 of cover.

An examination of the varied ways, outside and inside markets, in which Asante producers obtained labor, land and capital during the transformative era. This is a study of the changing rules and relationships within which natural, human and man-made resources were mobilized for production during the development of an agricultural export economy in Asante, a major West African kingdom which became, by 1945, the biggest regional contributor to Ghana's status as the world's largest cocoa producer. The period 1807-1956 as a whole was distinguished in Asante history by relatively favorable political conditions for indigenous as well as (during colonial rule) for foreign private enterprise. It saw generally increasing external demands for products that could be produced on Asante land. This book, which fills a major gap in Asante economic history, transcends the traditional divide between studies of precolonial and of twentieth-century African history. It analyses the interaction of coercion and the market in the context of a rich but fragile natural environment, the central process being a transition from slavery and debt-bondage to hired labor and agricultural indebtedness. It contributes to the broad debate about Africa's historic combination of emerging 'capitalist' institutions and persistent 'precapitalist' ones, and tests the major theories of the political economy of institutional change. It is written accessibly for an interdisciplinary readership. Gareth Austin is a lecturer in Economic History, London School of Economics and Political Science, and Joint Editor of the 'Journal of African History'.

First published in 2004. The International Bibliography of the Social Sciences is an annual four volume publication covering Economics, Political Science, Sociology and Anthropology. It is compiled by the British Library of Political and Economic Science under the auspices of the International Committee for Social Science Information and Documentation. Some 100,000 articles (from over 2,700 journals) and 20,000 books are scanned each year in the process of compiling the International Bibliography. Coverage is international with publications in over 70 languages from more than 60 countries. All titles are given in their original language and in English translation

The economic and social organisation of Ghanaian cocoa-farming is very complex, reflecting differences in population density, land tenure, accessibility, soil fertility and other factors. The 'small peasant', with his two or three acre farms, is one type of farmer, and it has always been supposed that it was he who created the world's largest cocoa-growing industry. The migration of southern Ghanaian cocoa-farmers, which has been proceeding since the 1890s, was not known to have occurred; and this study shows that it was the migrant, not the 'peasant', who was the real innovator. This migrant has scarcely been mentioned in the literature. Author Polly Hill now gives a full account of his migration, 'one of the great events in the recent economic history of Africa south of the Sahara'. The migrant farmer, who rather resembles a 'capitalist' than a 'peasant', buys land (or inherits it from those who bought before him) and conventionally uses the proceeds from one cocoa land to purchase others. It is now possible with the aid of farm-maps to study the whole migratory process, with its changing pattern of land ownership, over more than half a century. The results are revealing. The conventional notion that it was only recently that West Africans began to engage in large-scale economic enterprises is shown to be false. One of the main contentions of this book is that the migrant farmer has been remarkably responsive to economic ends. It is further shown that there is no incompatibility between this kind of enterprise and the continuance of traditional forms of social organisation: nor is there evidence that the enterprising individual found himself hampered by the demands made on him by members of his lineage. In analysing and recording the details of the migratory process, Dr. Hill has made an important contribution to the economic history of West Africa. Besides the economists and economic historians for whom the book is primarily intended, it should be studied by lawyers, geographers, social anthropologists, and all concerned with problems of underdevelopment.

The various manifestations of coerced labour between the opening up of the Atlantic world and the formal creation of Haiti.