The upside of colonialism

From Numeracy development in Africa: New evidence from a long-term perspective (1730–1970) by Gabriele Cappelli and Joerg Baten.  From the Abstract.

Historical evidence of numeracy on the African continent since the 18th century is presented for the first time based on a panel dataset of 43 African countries covering the periods before, during and after colonialism (1730–1970). Estimates of numeracy draw on the age-heaping methodology: we carefully discuss the potential biases and sources of measurement error concerning the use of this index for long-term analyses. These new estimates enable us to gain a better understanding of long-term African development. We find that the evolution of numeracy over time correlates with differences in colonial education systems, even when controlling for other variables.

There is more and more research like this, identifying countries with strong colonial history having accelerated socio-economic development as a consequence.   Not always, but preponderantly.  

We can increasingly see that for many colonized countries, a consequence was an acceleration in socio-economic progress and institutionalized progress.  

There are two unanswered questions.  Was the cost of colonization to the colonizer and colonized on balance worthwhile?  Hard to answer definitively but there are sometimes some suggestive hints.

The more difficult question is ethical.  Even if the net benefit is strongly beneficial to both the colonizer and the colonized, would that warrant the coercive occupation of undeveloped regions?

It feels compelling that the answer would be no!  On the other hand, recasting it a bit "Is mutually net  beneficial colonialism (even with a cost) permissible if it is the only known means of accelerating future national productivity?  The World Bank and IMF have a pretty extensive rate of failure.

I still feel that the answer should be no, but the implication is that we accept more deaths, greater illness and less stable development.  It is a challenging question.