God, homeland, and those who had the right to neither: An overview of private property laws and human capital accumulation during dictatorial colonial rule in Angola

Abstract: Human Capital is deemed as an imperative factor for economic growth, however, it is argued the extent of this interrelation. Acemoglu, Gallego and Robinson (2014) claim that the institutional framework of a nation, in specificthose of private property are deemed as pivotal for a nation’s development. In this sense, in order to contectualise this argument, the current thesis focuses on the case of Angola during the period of 1933 to 1974, while creating a descriptive analysis of private property laws and how it follows the trends of human capital accumulation. In this sense, the thesis will not only provide a contextualization of the multiple works of Acemoglu but also provide the first English description of pre-colonial Angolan legislation (of the author’s knowledge). It is concluded that despite the existence of private property laws, the discrepancy of its applicability and the reocurrent changes negatively affected human capital accumulation of the masses, and was translated into the migration oft of individuals with low literacy into the country.