arbiter
JournalsAccount

Leaving the “Fourth Shore”: The effect of Italian farmers’ expulsions from post-colonial Libya, 1930–2005

Mattia Cosma Bertazzini

Explorations in Economic History2026https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2026.101740article
AJG 3ABDC A
Weight
0.50

Abstract

Numerous Italian farms were established in colonial Libya during the 1920s and 30s, but Italian settlers were expelled in two steps: from Cyrenaica (East) in 1942, and from Tripolitania (West) in 1970. I study the consequences of these expulsions and, through their lenses, of the presence of Italian skilled farmers on the agricultural sector of 20th century Libya. Leveraging newly assembled district-level data on agricultural production, I estimate two separate triple differences that combine unaffected Italian districts and Libyan ones to build a credible counterfactual. The removal of Italian farmers led, in both cases, to a relative reduction in the level of commercialization and a return to the production of traditional field crops. The abandonment of particular farming practices, such as irrigated commercial crops, explains this pattern.

Open via your library →

Cite this paper

https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2026.101740

Or copy a formatted citation

@article{mattia2026,
  title        = {{Leaving the “Fourth Shore”: The effect of Italian farmers’ expulsions from post-colonial Libya, 1930–2005}},
  author       = {Mattia Cosma Bertazzini},
  journal      = {Explorations in Economic History},
  year         = {2026},
  doi          = {https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eeh.2026.101740},
}

Paste directly into BibTeX, Zotero, or your reference manager.

Flag this paper

Leaving the “Fourth Shore”: The effect of Italian farmers’ expulsions from post-colonial Libya, 1930–2005

Flags are reviewed by the Arbiter methodology team within 5 business days.

Evidence weight

0.50

Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40

F · citation impact0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20
M · momentum0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07
V · venue signal0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03
R · text relevance †0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20

† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.