Historical evidence of numeracy on the African continent since the 18th century is presented for the first time based on a panel dataset of 43 African countries covering the periods before, during and after colonialism (1730–1970). Estimates of numeracy draw on the age-heaping methodology: we carefully discuss the potential biases and sources of measurement error concerning the use of this index for long-term analyses. These new estimates enable us to gain a better understanding of long-term African development. We find that the evolution of numeracy over time correlates with differences in colonial education systems, even when controlling for other variables.

根据43个非洲国家的面板数据集首次介绍了18世纪以来非洲大陆的算术历史证据，涵盖了殖民主义之前，期间和之后的时期（1730年至1970年）。算术估算使用的是年龄增长方法：我们仔细讨论了有关长期使用该指数的潜在偏差和测量误差的来源。这些新的估计使我们对非洲的长期发展有了更好的了解。我们发现，即使在控制其他变量的情况下，计算能力随时间的变化也与殖民地教育体系的差异相关。