Institutional Copying in the 20th Century: The Role of 14,000 British Colonial Officers

Did individual British officers determine the institutional development of former colo-nies? The article presents a new research program into institutional reform and economicdevelopment based on a new dataset f 14,000 biographical entries of senior colonialofficers in 54 British colonies between 1939 and 1966. The rich data permit a new meth-odological approach towards the question of how institutions are copied into countries.It puts a radical focus on the individual actors involved in the institutional reforms beforeindependence. The article discusses fundamental information on the British colonial ser-vice and presents preliminary analyses from within the new research agenda.