This article reconstructs the entrepreneurial investment network behind the rise of the textile industry in Antioquia - one of Colombia's leading industrial regions - between the late nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Drawing on firm-level ownership records from the Medell & iacute;n Chamber of Commerce (1887-1934) and evidence on elite social connections, the study applies social network analysis to reconstruct the cross-sector investment ties linking textile entrepreneurs to commerce, industry, and banking. The results show that textile investors were most strongly connected to commercial activities, while banking displayed the highest level of centrality, acting as a key coordinating node across sectors. These network configurations reveal that the development of the textile industry relied on dense intersectoral linkages rather than on isolated entrepreneurial initiatives. By providing a sector-specific, quantitative reconstruction of investment networks, the study offers a refined perspective on how patterns of industrial consolidation emerged in a late-industrializing regional economy.
South Africa prior to 1994 constitutes a paradigmatic case of entrenched racial segregation and state-sanctioned discrimination. Black, Coloured, and Asian populations were systematically relegated to a subordinate status compared to the dominant White minority. Drawing on direct statistical sources, such as censuses and national budgets, this study explores long-term disparities through the lens of numeracy, a proxy for basic arithmetic skills. We analyse numeracy levels by race across cohorts born between the 1850s and the 1980s, with a particular focus on the Black population, given its demographic predominance. A key contribution is to document heterogeneity by province of residence, alongside gender and birth cohort. Our results show clear and persistent gaps in numeracy by race and gender, with Black individuals and women consistently disadvantaged. Notably, numeracy levels indicative of full numeracy were not attained by the Black population until the 1960s cohort, more than a century after White individuals had reached that threshold. Strikingly, we also find comparatively high numeracy levels in the homelands; while data-quality concerns remain, this pattern is consistent with scholarship on African agency and locally sustained educational initiatives.
This paper examines sovereign lending to Mexico in the Euromarkets during the decade preceding the 1982 international debt crisis, focusing on the interaction between syndicated bank credits and international bonds. While existing scholarship has largely treated Eurocredit and Eurobond markets as separate channels of sovereign finance, this article shows that, in Mexico's case, they were closely intertwined and jointly shaped by the strategies of international banks. Drawing on original datasets covering all syndicated credits and Eurobond issues to Mexico during this period, complemented by bank-level evidence and archival material from Lloyds Bank International, we demonstrate that leading international banks arbitrated between bonds and credits in response to changes in country risk and macro-financial conditions. During periods of heightened distress, banks moved away from direct lending towards bond issuance, expanded syndicates, and reduced individual exposures as part of coordinated risk-management strategies. The analysis also uncovers a hierarchy in international lending in which leading market-making banks shaped access to sovereign finance while reallocating risk across instruments and institutions globally.
This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between leases and income, and the agricultural sector's output, during the Pampas expansion in Argentina (1895-1947). The findings show the consequences of infrastructure growth and the modernization of economic relations in the Argentine countryside during the early decades of the twentieth century. These developments, in conjunction with a rapid expansion and utilization of available soil, had profound effects on land prices. It is postulated that these changes not only impacted positively on agricultural income but also led to an increase of rent seeking practices in the rural sector during the twentieth century. This is remarkable during the agrarian expansion of the first decade of the century, but also in the later periods. The data from 1937 reveals that, despite the agricultural sector's crisis during the Great Depression, the significance of land leases in relation to agricultural output remained remarkably resilient. In the critical context of the Second World War, this mounting pressure led to legislation freezing and regulating rural leases, resulting in a sharp decline in their share of the agricultural product by 1947.
In this article, we investigate how wealth evolved across social classes following land-encroachment policies implemented in Sonora in the late nineteenth century. Using a database of will inventories from Sonora, we find that the upper class saw large wealth gains following a policy shift, enabling encroachment, but not for other social groups. This indicates that access to previously indigenous land benefited only members of the elite in Sonora. We highlight the role of institutions in shaping wealth and inequality in the early periods of Latin American economic development.
This study examines the dietary conditions of the Chilean population in 1960. It evaluates the relationship between food poverty and income inequality through an integrated analysis of consumption- and income-based data. It combines qualitative research with quantitative analysis of two primary sources: the 1960 national nutrition survey conducted by the Interdepartmental Committee on Nutrition for National Defense (ICNND), and the 1960 Employment and Unemployment Survey of Greater Santiago, which includes income data from 2,352 households. The ICNND survey provided detailed clinical and dietary indicators, revealing widespread deficiencies, including underweight, anemia, and low intake of protein-rich and protective foods. The analysis found that structural income inequality was a significant determinant of nutritional deprivation. While national food availability was sufficient in terms of calories, unequal income distribution limited access to adequate diets for a considerable portion of the population.
This paper analyses mining operations by multinational mining companies in Chile and Congo (1910s-1960s), focusing on methods to establish control over subsidiaries. It examines Andes Copper Company and Chile Exploration Company (Anaconda) in Chile and Union Mini & egrave;re du Haut-Katanga and Soci & eacute;t & eacute; Mini & egrave;re du B & eacute;c & eacute;ka in Congo, and compares the role of travel and communication in managing operations. It identifies striking similarities in their approaches, including international expertise for ore prospecting and technical knowledge transfer, as well as North-South travel for supervision and strategic discussions. Communication differences were influenced by company-culture variations, as well as unique historical, social, and political backgrounds of each host country. Anaconda relied on experienced expatriate staff, certain local initiatives in Chile, and frequent mail correspondence. Belgian companies in Congo faced challenges due to colonial anxieties and limited local expertise - needing closer supervision, more site visits, and increased reporting.
This article examines the 1949 monetary reform in French Somaliland, when the French government replaced the colonial franc with a currency board pegged to the US dollar - breaking with the franc zone but without granting autonomy. Triggered by the collapse of the French franc and distrust of a colonial currency ill suited to regional trade, the reform imposed external stability through a top-down mechanism lacking legitimacy. Drawing on unpublished archives from the French Ministry of Finance (SAEF) and using the Mundell-Fleming trilemma as an analytical lens, the article shows how French authorities prioritized exchange rate stability and capital mobility over monetary autonomy. Far from a step towards sovereignty, the reform reaffirmed imperial interests under the fa & ccedil;ade of technical modernization. Three concerns motivated this decision: the discrediting of the colonial franc, Ethiopia's demand for settlement mechanisms, and France's strategic imperative to maintain a foothold in the Horn of Africa. The resulting arrangement created 'stability without sovereignty', a structured dependency that was monetary (via a rigid dollar peg), institutional (under French Treasury oversight), and commercial (through interdependence with Ethiopia). The 1949 reform thus exemplifies how a currency board transformed colonial dependence into a tool of economic and geopolitical engineering, prefiguring postcolonial monetary logics.
This paper examines long-term colonial trade linkages using import data from South and Southeast Asian colonies between 1874 and 1913. It analyses the 'colonial effect' on imports, focusing on how the introduction of imperial preferences in the 1890s strengthened trade between colonies and their metropoles - particularly in Indochina and the Philippines. A gravity model analysis reveals that the impact of colonial ties on trade varied by empire: British and Dutch colonies initially exhibited stronger trade connections, while French and Spanish colonies saw a relative increase in imports from their metropoles following the implementation of discriminatory tariffs in the early 1890s.
In a bid to maintain sovereignty, Siam strategically adopted the Torrens system of land administration in 1901, effectively converting traditional secure usufruct rights to fully transferable private property rights with absolute exclusion rights. Using plot-level data collected from 9,840 Bangkok orchard land deeds issued in the 1880s, this study analyses the incidence of land transfers before and after the enactment of the 1901 land law. The analysis shows that the shift from secure usufruct to fully transferable private property rights is associated with increased land transfers in Bangkok after 1901. Furthermore, the lifting of agricultural land use restrictions resulted in an acceleration of property transactions in urbanized areas and for properties located adjacent to the Chao Phraya River and roads - transportation methods that were important for commerce and trade but not for agriculture. Siam's strategic adoption of a colonial land institution to maintain sovereignty had the unintended consequence of vitalizing Bangkok's property market and supporting the growth of new economic activities at the turn of the twentieth century.
Colonialism has important effects for former colonies, and despite the long colonial history between Europe and Africa, the nuances of the impacts of that history are relatively understudied. The current treatment of colonial ties as a binary relationship is incomplete and misleading because of this long and varied history. Using data for African migration from 1960 to 2000, we find that the longer the colonial relationship, the more likely a person will be to migrate to a European colonizer. This influence only appears once colonization length passes around 66 years. Additionally, the era of original colonization influences movement: places colonized during the 'Scramble for Africa' see less migration than those colonized before or after. Colonialism was much more complicated than existing work allows and warrants a more in-depth study of these relationships and their persistent impacts.
At independence, most African countries viewed development as synonymous with industrialization. With the enactment of the Aid to Pioneer Industries Ordinance in 1952, industrialization became a major development objective in Nigeria. However, the history of industrial policy in the north-east is understudied, and the literature on Nigerian industrial policy in general underplays political factors in the conception and implementation of industrial projects. This inhibits understanding of how non-economic factors led to industrial decline. This paper fills the gap using oral interviews and government publications within the purview of political economy. The results show that political factors are critical in understanding industrial development as evident in how the relocation of industries from Gombe to Bauchi beginning in 1976 partly informed the movement that led to the creation of Gombe State in 1996. However, successive administrations in the new state of Gombe largely failed to accord industrialization its rightful place, instead using proposed industrial projects to woo the electorate. This paper observes a trend in Gombe industrialization where claims of marginalization have shifted to the tokenism of rhetoric and minimum compliance with standards - a trend, this paper argues, is more the result of political factors than often-cited economic variables.
This paper analyses economic ideas in Benin from c. 1440 to 1897 and how they shaped state economic policies that guided the day-to-day economic activities of the people. The existing literature on the economic history of Benin Kingdom in particular and Nigerian societies in general focuses on trade, agriculture, and industries, without any systematic enquiry into the ideas underpinning them. The resultant paucity of historiography on economic ideas and how they evolved into state economic policies is a dual lacuna in the economic history of precolonial Nigeria. The study shows that economic thought played a significant role in steering the practical and enforceable laws that guided everyday economic activities and contributed to the material success of the people and their Kingdom. Moreover, it is shown that these economic ideas underwent significant changes during the period of study. These vicissitudes are more noticeable between the periods of magnificence that followed Oba Ewuare (1440-1473) the Great's accomplishments, and the civil wars, crises, and decline at the eve of British conquest.
The study analyses the contributions and challenges women face in the Jos Plateau marketplaces. Since the colonial period, indigenous women traders have contributed to market activities. Despite the long history of women in this space, gender power dynamics remain prominent. Women generally occupy the lower level of the market chain of command, mostly as petty traders, and they are excluded from positions of market administration and middlemanship. Drawing on feminist scholarship, and based on extensive fieldwork and interviews, the study focuses on two markets in Plateau State - Mangu and Mai katako - both major markets in maize, vegetable, and potato. The study reconstructs the intricate ways in which market associations have been converted into exclusive 'men's clubs', and how the traders' associations have perpetuated gender inequality.
This article reconstructs the neglected history of agricultural production, marketing, and distribution in colonial Igalaland (central Nigeria). The history of the colonial economy of Igalaland from the period of the formal introduction of colonial rule in 1900 until 1960, when Nigeria became an independent nation, can best be understood as a moment of intersection between colonial structures, social change, and human agency. The history of the food economy in Igalaland is crucial to understanding the enduring legacy of colonial exaction and economic structures and their role in shaping a trajectory of exploitation and resilience. This aspect of the Igala economic history has yet to receive the critical scrutiny it deserves, constituting a major gap in the historiography of the region. This article fills this gap by relying extensively on archival documents from the Nigerian National Archives located in Kaduna and Ibadan, as well as secondary sources and semi-structured interviews. It will argue that, despite the negative consequences of colonial rule in Igalaland from 1900 to 1929 and 1930 to 1945, the period from 1945 to 1960 benefited the colonial administration, middlemen, and farmers while increasing economic inequality and creating systemic vulnerabilities.
From a historical perspective and using a country-specific case analysis, this paper examines the claim that, under a bilateral or multilateral arrangement, a country's monetary system unwittingly causes frustrations in the monetary management of other countries. It explores the dynamics of Nigeria's relationship with the UK throughout the Sterling Area regime and documents the diplomatic reactions of Nigeria to the variations in the role of the sterling as a reserve currency. The paper shows that attempts by Nigeria to optimize the benefits of her membership were scuttled by mutual suspicion, a lack of requisite central banking capacity, and fiscal recklessness. On the one hand, Nigeria benefited from the Sterling Area operations by gaining easier and cheaper access to British capital markets. On the other hand, despite the efforts of the Nigerian government to adjust to the changing sterling realities, the country's internal capacity constraints and sub-optimal choices ended up undermining her reserve management system, while also serving as a significant source of frustration to the British monetary authority.
This article provides new evidence for the effects of land inequality on human capital formation using the case of Colombia in the first half of the twentieth century. The paper studies this causal effect by exploiting a new historical database and creating a measure of land tenure based on subnational taxable land. The analysis applies multiple empirical strategies to demonstrate that low levels of land inequality are related to growth in literacy rates and better performance in variables such as enrolment and expenditure on education. Additionally, we analyse the relevance of the mechanism behind this relationship by identifying the effects of educational supply and demand through the heterogeneous impact on gender, rurality, and industrial employment. The results show that the demand side is prominent. The findings are in line with growing evidence of the perverse effects of land inequality on the formation of human capital in inegalitarian, poor, and rural societies.
