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Journal Article

Post-colonial Trade across European and non-European Colonizers

This article presents an expanded dataset that captures global colonial history and is 50 days online available.

Date Published
23 Mar 2026
Authors
Ebenezer Sosu Samuel Standaert
Journal
Economic Letters, 264, Science Direct - Elsevier

Existing studies on post-colonial trade have primarily focused on the British and French colonizers, leaving limited evidence on other colonial powers. Using a more comprehensive colonial history dataset covering all colonial relationships, we examine the impact of global colonial history on trade. We find that both European and non-European colonizers have positive trade effects with former colonies. However, the magnitude and persistence of these effects are substantially larger for non-European powers. While some non-European colonizers exhibit the same trade erosion following independence as their European counterparts, others seem to retain strong colonial linkages.

As has been established in the literature, colonization has left a lasting imprint on global trade flows (see e.g., Mitchener and Weidenmier, 2008, Head et al., 2010, Lavallée and Lochard, 2015). Even decades after independence, trade between colonizers and their former colonies remains high (Stack et al., 2019, Mazhikeyev and Edwards, 2021). However, evidence of these enduring effects largely comes from studies that cover only a subset of colonial relationships, focusing predominantly on the British and French colonizers (De Sousa and Lochard, 2012, Berthou and Ehrhart, 2017). The experiences of other European and non-European colonizers, such as Belgium, Spain, Japan, or the USA, remain largely unexplored. This narrow focus leaves an important question. Are France and Great Britain representative of other colonizers, and more generally, do European and non-European powers differ in the persistence of post-colonial trade?

Suggested citation: Ebenezer Sosu, Samuel Standaert. "Post-colonial Trade across European and non-European Colonizers," Economic Letters 264 (2026)

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