Slow growth, supply shocks and structural change: The GDP of the Cape Colony in the late nineteenth century

The trajectory of South African economic development starts in the colonial economies. No systematic data exists on the Gross Domestic Product of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910. A comprehensive project to reconstruct nineteenth-century Gross Domestic Project (GDP) for the different territories can now report for the first time on actual Cape Colony GDP data. This paper presents the findings of reconstructed Cape Colony GDP according to the SNA. It confirms earlier estimates, refines very tentative projections of Cape Colony GDP during the nineteenth century and offers new insights into the nature and direction of the settler economy in the nineteenth century. It also pioneers data on the Cape Colony GDP and is the first in a series outlining nineteenth-century GDP of the territories that formed the Union of South Africa in 1910.