| 1. |
- Galli, Stefania, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Colonialism and rural inequality in Sierra Leone: an egalitarian experiment
- 2020
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Ingår i: European Review of Economic History. - : Oxford University Press (OUP). - 1361-4916 .- 1474-0044. ; 24:3, s. 468-501
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- We analyze the level of inequality in rural Sierra Leone in the early colonial period. Previous research has suggested that the colony was established under highly egalitarian ideals. We examine whether these ideals also are reflected in the real distribution of wealth in the colony. We employ a newly assembled dataset extracted from census data in the colony in 1831. The results show that rural Sierra Leone exhibited one of the most equal distributions of wealth so far estimated for any preindustrial rural society
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| 2. |
- Galli, Stefania, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Economic Inequality in Latin America and Africa, 1650 to 1950: Can a comparison of historical trajectories help to understand underdevelopment?
- 2023
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Ingår i: Economic History of Developing Regions. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2078-0389 .- 2078-0397. ; 38:1, s. 41-64
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The present article provides a comparative review of historicaleconomic inequality in the two most unequal regions of theworld, namely Latin America and Africa. This contributionexamines novel studies that provide quantitative estimates ofincome and/or wealth inequality in the two continents in termsof sources, methods, results and interpretations, focusing on theperiod 1650 to 1950. The article shows that although scholars inthe two regions have often employed similar methodologies,their results are far from conforming to a uniform pattern. Thepresent review highlights how scholars of Latin America andAfrica tend to remain geographically isolated, failing to capturethe learning opportunities stemming from the work of theircontinental counterparts in terms of both sources and methods.
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| 3. |
- Galli, Stefania, 1989, et al.
(författare)
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Land distribution and Inequality in a Black Settler Colony: The case of Sierra Leone, 1792-1831
- 2021
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Ingår i: Economic history review. - : Wiley. - 0013-0117 .- 1468-0289. ; 74:1, s. 115-137
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Land distribution is considered to be one of the main contributors to inequality in pre-industrial societies. This article contributes to the debate on the origins of economic inequality in pre-industrial African societies by studying land inequality at a particularly early stage of African economic history. The research examines land distribution and inequality in land ownership among settlers in the Colony of Sierra Leone for three benchmark years over the first 40 years of its existence. The findings show that land inequality was low at the founding of the Colony but increased substantially over time.We suggest that this increase was enabled by a shift in the type of egalitarianism pursued by the colonial authorities, which was reflected in a change in the redistributive policy applied, which allowed later settlers to appropriate land more freely than had been previously possible.
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| 4. |
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| 5. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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A colonial cash cow: the return on investments in British Malaya, 1889-1969
- 2022
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Ingår i: Cliometrica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1863-2505 .- 1863-2513. ; 16, s. 149-173
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Historical rates of return on investments have received increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Much literature has focused especially on colonies, where institutions have been argued to facilitate severe exploitation. In the present study, we examine the return on investments in an Asian colony, British Malaya, from 1889 to 1969 for a large sample of companies. Our results suggest that the return on investments in Malaya might have been among the highest in the world during the period studied. Nevertheless, this finding fits badly with theories of imperial exploitation and can only to a limited extent be explained by a higher risk premium. Instead, we argue that the main driver of the very high return on investments in Malaya was rather the substantial rise in global market prices of the output of the two main sectors of the Malayan economy, rubber and tin. The way that the process of decolonization unfolded in Malaya did, furthermore, not lead to any major nationalization of foreign-held assets, and did thereby not disrupt the return on investment in the region in the same way as decolonization did to the return on investment in some other colonies.
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| 6. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Aednan och Bolaget: ett kolonialt perspektiv på gruvbrytning i Sápmi vid 1900-talets början : Aednan and the Company: A Colonial Perspective on Mining in Sapmi in the Early Twentieth Century
- 2020
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Ingår i: Historisk Tidskrift. - 0345-469X. ; 140:3, s. 476-497
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Despite a growing international interest in the colonial history of indigenous people in general, and an emerging field of Sami-related history in Sweden in particular, the impact on the field of Swedish economic history is still very limited. This is somewhat paradoxical, given that the dominating narrative on the modernization of the Swedish economy during the 19th and 20th century still rests heavily on the exploitation of natural resources located in Sápmí. In this article we pose the question: to what extent can a colonial perspective further our understanding of the exploitation of mineral deposits in the northern part of Sweden? To pursue such an analysis, we specifically address the development of the iron ore mine in Kiruna during the late 19th and early 20th century. We use a combination of sources (press, government investigations and literature) to probe into the relationships between on the one hand the Sami people and on the other hand the private and public interests that were formed in the wake of the development of a mine, which in just a few years developed into the largest mine in Sweden and the dominating stock on the Stockholm Stock Exchange. We show that theoretical approaches developed in the tradition of colonial history can offer productive modes of analysis when it comes to further our understanding of the structural discrimination of the Sami people. We argue that these theoretical approaches can open up important new avenues for scholars in economic history to search for new sources or revisit old ones with new questions about the grand narrative of how the modernization of Sweden came about.
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| 7. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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African agricultural productivity and the transatlantic slave trade: evidence from Senegambia in the nineteenth century
- 2019
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Ingår i: Economic history review. - : Wiley. - 0013-0117. ; 72:1, s. 209-232
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The role of agriculture has been central in Africa’s long-term economic development. Previous research has argued that low productivity of African economies has posed significant challenges in African efforts to produce an agricultural surplus or develop commercial agriculture. Low agricultural productivity has also served as a key explanation for the transatlantic slave trade, on the basis that it was more profitable to export humans overseas than to grow and export produce. The field has however suffered from a lack of comparable empirical evidence. This paper contributes to this field by presenting quantitative data on historical land- and labour productivity in Africa, from a case study of the agricultural productivity in Senegambia in the early nineteenth century. Focusing on five key crops, our results suggest that both land- and labour productivity was lower in Senegambia than it was in all other parts of the world for which we have found comparable data. We thus lend support to claims that stress ecological factors as one of the main determinants of Africa’s historical development.
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| 8. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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All that glitters is not gold: The return on British investments in South Africa, 1869-1969
- 2018
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Ingår i: Journal for Studies in Economics and Econometrics. - 0379-6205. ; 42:2, s. 61-79
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This article studies the return on British investments in South Africa during the period 1869 to 1969. The study is based on sample of 453 companies, operating within the region of current-day South Africa, and whose stocks were traded on the London Stock Exchange. Our analysis shows that the return on South African investments was substantially lower than what some previous research in the field has claimed. The results therefore challenge the received wisdom that investments in South Africa were particularly profitable to the investors.
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| 9. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974
(författare)
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An early-modern consumer revolution in the Baltic?
- 2010
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Ingår i: Scandinavian Journal of History. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0346-8755 .- 1502-7716. ; 35:2, s. 177-197
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The European consumer revolution has gained increasing attention in recent years. This paper goes beyond the previous scholarly focus upon Western Europe in general, and Britain in particular, by studying the consumer revolution in the Baltic region in general, and Denmark and Sweden in particular. Previous research has underestimated the quantities of ‘new luxuries’ imported into the Baltic region. Disaggregating the region, the empirical evidence shows that the Danish population consumed approximately as much of for example sugar as the British did, already by the late 18th century. The paper argues that this to a large extent can be attributed to the fact that real wages in Denmark were comparatively high at the time, even approaching the levels paid to workers in high-wage countries in north-western Europe. The high wages, together with a number of other factors, thus enabled an early consumer revolution at least in this part of the Baltic.
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| 10. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974
(författare)
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Atlantic Early-Modern Migrations and Economic Globalization
- 2013
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Ingår i: Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration. - : Wiley-Blackwell. - 9781444351071
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This essay will focus on the main causes of the voluntary and involuntary transatlantic migration during the early-modern era, the patterns of the migration, as well as the consequences it had.
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