Colonial origins of comparative development in Ghana

Can colonial rule explain part of the development divergence between Northern and Southern Ghana? To answer this question, first I relied on precolonial ethnic institutions and other socioeconomic-related variables to empirically prove that the North, which is significantly less developed than the South today, had been relatively more developed than the South in precolonial times. Then I showed that during the colonial period, the North received significantly scant colonial public investments as compared to the South. However, I found that past colonial public investments have robust, permanent positive impact on current development outcomes in Ghana. This suggests that places that received scant colonial investments are comparatively less developed today in Ghana. Lastly, the study found that conditioned on past colonial public investments the current development gap between the two regions reduces considerably. Consequently, the study argues that if the North had received a fair share of colonial investments it would have maintained its precolonial development pace and would have been relatively more developed today.