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- 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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- 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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- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Capital and Colonialism: The Return on British Investments in Africa 1869-1969
- 2019
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)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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- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Historicizing the environmental Kuznets Curve: water pollution in Göta Älv, Sweden, 1895–2000
- 2016
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Ingår i: Water History. - 1877-7236 .- 1877-7244. ; 8:2, s. 95-114
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, it is argued that environmental historians ought to become more engaged in scholarly debate on the Environmental Kuznets Curve. Starting from this theoretical perspective, the paper studies water pollution in the case of the river Göta Älv in Sweden. The empirical evidence shown for pollution of the river fits well with the patterns hypothesized by the theory of an Environmental Kuznets Curve. Explaining the relationship is however more complex than much of the research in this field has argued. An historical analysis of the relationship shows that the pattern was largely dependent on a process of learning about the negative environmental impact of various types of pollution, and the need to deal with these problems. A crucial turning point in the relationship between economic growth and environmental pollution occurred when pollution levels approached the carrying capacity of the local ecosystems.
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- Rönnbäck, Klas, 1974, et al.
(författare)
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Imperial profits – the return on British investments in Africa, 1869-1969
- 2016
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Ingår i: VI Annual Meeting of the African Economic History Network.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)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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