Publications

Students’ absenteeism during in-person lecturing in higher
education: A pilot study of causes and potential solutions

Student absenteeism in higher education has become an increasing concern. I study the underlying causes of chronic absenteeism in in-person lectures and investigate potential strategies to mitigate this trend. The study highlights the importance of interactive teaching methods. Increased peer and instructor engagement, collaborative classroom activities, and a reduced reliance on slideshows and textbook-based assessments are identified as potential solutions.

Almost perfect inequality: long-run evidence on wealth distribution from the Danish West Indies 1760–1914. Ciometrica. With Klas Rönnbäck, Dimitrios Theodoridis and Kathrine F. Larsen

It has been proposed that slave societies were the most unequal societies in recorded human history. Our study contributes to the literature by studying wealth distribution over the long-run for the Caribbean region. Our results show a distribution of wealth shockingly close to perfect inequality and highly persistent over the long run.

Unsettling the slave master: resistance and transgressive
behavior in a Caribbean slave colony. Social Science History. with Dimitrios Theodoridis and Klas Rönnbäck

We study transgressive behavior among an enslaved population quantitatively. We employ a unique census from the Caribbean island of St. Croix in 1846. We find that the individuals who transgressed the oppressive institution were, in many respects, quite typical of the entire enslaved population under study.

The paper studies one of the most extremely unequal societies ever recorded — the sugar-based economies in the West Indies — by focusing on the island of St. Croix in the Danish West Indies and examines the emergence and persistence of its economic elite. The shows that elite persistence remained high in global comparison throughout the period of interest, despite several ‘critical junctures’.

Reconstructing a Slave Society: Building the DWI Panel, 1760-1914. Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History , 57(3), 163–184. with Dimitrios Theodoridis and Klas Rönnbäck

In the article, we discuss the sources employed and the methodological choices that entailed assembling a novel, individual-level, large panel dataset containing an incredible wealth of data for an entire population in the Caribbean over a long time span: the DWI panel.

Numeracy and the legacy of slavery: Age-heaping in the Danish West Indies before and after emancipation from slavery, 1780s–1880s. European Review of Economic History (Early view). with Dimitrios Theodoridis and Klas Rönnbäck

We study quantitatively how a legacy of slavery impacted upon the development of basic numeracy skills. Our results show that numeracy skills started to improve in the population under study following the legal abolition of slavery. Investments in public schooling during this period thus seem to have been important for the increased learning of basic numeracy skills.

The failed promise of freedom: Emancipation and wealth
inequality in the Caribbean. The Economic History Review (Early view). with Dimitrios Theodoridis and Klas Rönnbäck

This paper provides empirical evidence on patterns of wealth inequality before and after emancipation for a typical slavery-based sugar island in the Caribbean. Our findings suggest that there was no decrease in inequality following emancipation due to factor endowments and more specifically on restrictive land–labour ratios. 

Historical economic inequality in Latin America and Africa:
Can a comparison of historical trajectories help to understand underdevelopment? Economic History of the Developing Regions, 38(1), 41 – 64. with Dimitrios Theodoridis and Klas Rönnbäck

The article provides a comparative review of historical economic inequality in the two most unequal regions of the world, Latin America and Africa, focusing on the period 1650 to 1950. The article shows that although scholars in the two regions have often employed similar methodologies, their results are far from conforming to a uniform pattern.

Socio-economic status and group belonging: Evidence from Early Nineteenth-century Colonial West Africa. Social Science History, 46(2), 349-372.

This study provides a novel analysis of occupational stratification in Sierra Leone from a historical perspective. By employing census data for early-nineteenth-century colonial Sierra Leone, the study shows that an association between colonial group categorisation and socioeconomic status existed despite the colony being of very recent foundation.

“A Colonial Cash Cow: The Return on Investments in British
Malaya, 1889-1969”. Cliometrica, 16, 149-173. with Klas Rönnbäck and Oskar Broberg

We examine the return on investments in an Asian colony, British Malaya, from 1889 to 1969 for a large sample of companies. Our results suggest that the return on investments in Malaya might have been among the highest in the world during the period.

Land distribution and inequality in a black settler colony: the case of Sierra Leone, 1792–1831’. The Economic History Review 74(1), 115-137. with Klas Rönnbäck

This article contributes to the debate on the origins of economic inequality in pre-industrial African societies by studying land inequality at a particularly early stage of African economic history in the Colony of Sierra Leone.

Most Downloaded and Cited Article 2021-2022 in The Economic History Review

Colonialism and Rural Inequality in Sierra Leone: An Egalitarian Experiment’. European Review of Economic History 24(3), 468-501. with Klas Rönnbäck

The study analyses the level of inequality in rural Sierra Leone in the early colonial period. relying on census data from 1831. The results show that rural Sierra Leone exhibited one of the most equal distributions of wealth so far estimated for any pre-industrial rural society.

Marriage Patterns in an Alleged Egalitarian Society: Evidence from Early Nineteenth-century Sierra Leone’. The History of the Family 24(4), 744-768.

This article examines the determinants of marriage patterns in early nineteenth-century urban Sierra Leone relying on census data, studying the degree to which marriage-market constraints and preferences influenced marriage patterns.

Working in the ‘White Man’s Grave’: Epidemiological Risk and Compensating Wage Differentials on the 18th century Gold Coast. Journal of Migration History 5(3), 438-465. with Klas Rönnbäck and Stefan Öberg

This article examines the economic incentives for Europeans to migrate to the so-called ‘white man’s grave’ of West Africa using data from the Royal African Company. We find that economic reasons might have swayed the decision to migrate, albeit the premium was very small compared to the very high risk of dying.