IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ehsrev/v62y2009is1p135-166.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Returns on investments during the colonial era: the case of the Belgian Congo1

Author

Listed:
  • FRANS BUELENS
  • STEFAAN MARYSSE

Abstract

Before the First World War, Belgium participated in a global wave of foreign direct investment. After the war, a shift towards the Belgian colony of the Congo was observed. With regard to these investments, it is commonly argued that higher (expected) profit rates were a strong incentive, although others propose that the colonial powers lost money on their colonial possessions. We measure ex post performance in terms of the time‐weighted rate of return by making use of a new database of Congolese stocks and compare the Congolese data with a Belgian sample. Returns on Congolese stocks were much higher, at least until country risk became a reality.

Suggested Citation

  • Frans Buelens & Stefaan Marysse, 2009. "Returns on investments during the colonial era: the case of the Belgian Congo1," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 62(s1), pages 135-166, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:s1:p:135-166
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00482.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00482.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0289.2009.00482.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Robert Lemoine, 1934. "Finances et colonisation :la concentration des entreprises dans la mise en valeur du Congo belge," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/273947, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mai, Nhat Chi, 2020. "Post-war Labour Market Reconstruction : The Case of the Democratic Republic of the Congo," OSF Preprints w87nc, Center for Open Science.
    2. Annaert, Jan & Buelens, Frans & De Ceuster, Marc J.K., 2012. "New Belgian Stock Market Returns: 1832–1914," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 189-204.
    3. Klas Rönnbäck & Oskar Broberg & Stefania Galli, 2022. "A colonial cash cow: the return on investments in British Malaya, 1889–1969," Cliometrica, Springer;Cliometric Society (Association Francaise de Cliométrie), vol. 16(1), pages 149-173, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      More about this item

      Statistics

      Access and download statistics

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ehsrev:v:62:y:2009:i:s1:p:135-166. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ehsukea.html .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.