This proposal aims to measure, document, and understand the historical origins of contemporary African inequality that has a strong ethnic component. The focus is on the interplay of the nation and the ethnicity that co-evolve, sometimes violently and sometimes peacefully across the continent. The proposal consists of four closely related projects. The first project develops a large database portraying the evolution of inequality and intergenerational mobility in education covering the full post-independence period using census data from many countries. Decomposing inequality and mobility in education into a between-ethnicity and a within-ethnicity component, it provides an autopsy of the cross-country, cross-region, and dynamic patterns. Then it examines the mechanisms linking inequality with well-being, employing a plethora of geo-referenced micro data. The second project extends widely-used anthropological maps and cross-cultural data on pre-colonial Africa to examine the legacy of deeply-rooted ethnic-specific institutional and economic traits on development. The project aims exploring the key mechanisms and examining exactly which aspects of statehood (courts, land rights, bureaucracy) matter for development. The third project assesses the impact of colonial “divide-and-rule” strategies and ethnic-based favouritism/discrimination on contemporary African political economy. To this end it compiles an original database of ethnic power relations during colonization and then examines whether ethnic political power and inequality post-independence is related to the differential treatment of ethnicities from the colonial administration. The fourth project assesses the long-run development impact of colonial concessions to private corporations and their main features (e.g., forced labour, violence, method of extraction), compiling a pan-African dataset covering all concessions and applying state-of-the-art econometric techniques to establish causal relationships.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

With the growth of marketplaces and smart supply chains, there has been unprecedented research on data-driven operations. Algorithms for resource allocation and personalisation allow us to match supply with demand more efficiently in industries such as retail, transportation, and healthcare. Yet, these algorithms generally optimise for a single user-platform interaction, e.g., a purchase decision in a given product category. A major issue for platform operations is to develop a holistic viewpoint on user experience, supported by new data sources tracking longitudinal behaviour such as mobile trace data and clickstream data. Thus, I propose to design algorithms that optimise engagement for repeated user interactions in multi-touch operational platforms. As a case study, I will explore a highly relevant, yet uncharted application of "pathway operations": visitor experience in art institutions such as museums and galleries across physical and digital layouts. My research work will range from theoretical advancements in algorithm design to applied work in collaboration with museums. First, I will develop a new predictive utility maximisation framework for pathway choice models, which can be estimated from trajectory-based pathway data. Second, I will study the design and rigorous analysis of algorithms incorporating pathway choice models at their core, including novel formulations of assortment, online matching and multi-armed bandit problems. Third, building on an ongoing collaboration with a large museum, I will turn to simulations and implementations of these algorithms together with researchers in empirical fields. We will generate open-source code to help institutions like museums craft new experiences for their visitors, ranging from recommended physical routes to personalised virtual exhibitions. This research work will contribute to broader initiatives for an interactive, non-invasive and museum-centric digital ecosystem for our artistic heritage.