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- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(author)
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A colonial cash cow: the return on investments in British Malaya, 1889-1969
- 2022
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In: Cliometrica. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1863-2505 .- 1863-2513. ; 16, s. 149-173
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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| 2. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(author)
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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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In: Historisk Tidskrift. - 0345-469X. ; 140:3, s. 476-497
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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| 3. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(author)
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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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In: Journal for Studies in Economics and Econometrics. - 0379-6205. ; 42:2, s. 61-79
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)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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| 4. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(author)
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Capital and Colonialism: The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869-1969
- 2019
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Book (other academic/artistic)abstract
- This book engages in the long-standing debate on the relationship between capitalism and colonialism. Specifically, Rönnbäck and Broberg study the interaction between imperialist policies, colonial institutions and financial markets. Their primary method of analysis is examining micro- and macro-level data relating to a large sample of ventures operating in Africa and traded on the London Stock Exchange between 1869 and 1969. Their study shows that the relationship between capital and colonialism was highly complex. While return from investing in African colonies on average was not extraordinary, there were certainly many occasions when investors enjoyed high return due to various forms of exploitation. While there were actors with rational calculations and deliberate strategies, there was also an important element of chance in determining the return on investment – not least in the mining sector, which overall was the most important business for investment in African ventures during this period. This book finally also demonstrates that the different paths of decolonization in Africa had very diverse effects for investors.
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| 8. |
- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(author)
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Imperial profits – the return on British investments in Africa, 1869-1969
- 2016
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In: VI Annual Meeting of the African Economic History Network.
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Conference paper (other academic/artistic)abstract
- In this paper, we study the return on British investments in Sub-Saharan Africa during the colonial period. The paper analyzes investments in a larger set of countries and over a longer time-period than what has been done in any previous studies, using modern-day methods of estimating the return on investments. Our results show that the return was substantially higher on investments in Africa than the return on investments in Britain or elsewhere in the world during this time. The return was highest during the Scramble for Africa and during the interwar period. The latter fact has been almost completely missed in previous research in the profitability of imperialism. The high return was clearly associated with investments in mines in Southern Africa in general (and South African in particular), and thus seem attributable to a combination of rich mineral deposits, and colonial institutions driving down many of the costs associated with the extraction of these resources.
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