IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Profitabality of Colonialism

Author

Listed:
  • Herschel I. Grossman
  • Murat Iyigun

Abstract

This paper develops an analytical framework for studying colonial investment from the perspective of neoclassical political economy. The distinguishing feature of colonial investment in this model is that the metropolitan government restricts the amount of investment in the colony in order to maximize the net profits earned in the colony. The model explicitly includes the threat of extralegal appropriative activities by the indigenous population in the colony. The analysis of this model identifies the conditions, where these conditions include both the technology of production and the technology of extralegal appropriation, that determine the profitability of colonialism. The analysis suggests why historically some countries but not others became colonies and why many colonies that were initially profitable subsequently become unprofitable and were abandoned. The model also has implications for the amount of investment. the allocation of resources between productive and appropriative activities, and the distribution of income in colonies.

Suggested Citation

  • Herschel I. Grossman & Murat Iyigun, 1993. "The Profitabality of Colonialism," NBER Working Papers 4420, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Grossman, Herschel I, 1994. "Production, Appropriation, and Land Reform," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(3), pages 705-712, June.
    2. Grossman, Herschel I, 1991. "A General Equilibrium Model of Insurrections," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(4), pages 912-921, September.
    3. Svedberg, Peter, 1982. "The profitability of U.K. foreign direct investment under colonialism," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 273-286, December.
    4. Svedberg, Peter, 1981. "Colonial Enforcement of Foreign Direct Investment," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 49(1), pages 21-38, March.
    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. Iyigun, Murat, 2006. "Ottoman Conquests and European Ecclesiastical Pluralism," IZA Discussion Papers 1973, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Nunn, Nathan, 2007. "Historical legacies: A model linking Africa's past to its current underdevelopment," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 157-175, May.
    3. Herschel I. Grossman & Murat Iyigun, 1993. "Population Increase, Extralegal Appropriation, and the End of Colonialism," NBER Working Papers 4488, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Graziella Bertocchi, 2006. "Growth, history and institutions," Chapters, in: Neri Salvadori (ed.), Economic Growth and Distribution, chapter 14, pages 331-349, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    5. Iyigun, Murat, 2008. "Lessons from the Ottoman Harem (On Ethnicity, Religion and War)," IZA Discussion Papers 3556, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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.
    1. Herschel I. Grossman & Murat F. Iyigun, 1995. "The Profitability Of Colonial Investment," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 7(3), pages 229-241, November.
    2. Robert MacCulloch & Silvia Pezzini, 2010. "The Roles of Freedom, Growth, and Religion in the Taste for Revolution," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 53(2), pages 329-358, May.
    3. Fatema, Naureen, 2019. "Can land title reduce low-intensity interhousehold conflict incidences and associated damages in eastern DRC?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 123(C), pages 1-1.
    4. Johannes Münster & Klaas Staal, 2011. "War with Outsiders Makes Peace Inside," Conflict Management and Peace Science, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(2), pages 91-110, April.
    5. Kai Konrad & Stergios Skaperdas, 2012. "The market for protection and the origin of the state," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 50(2), pages 417-443, June.
    6. Francisco Campos-Ortiz & Louis Putterman & T.K. Ahn & Loukas Balafoutas & Mongoljin Batsaikhan & Matthias Sutter, 2012. "Security of property as a public good: Institutions, socio-political environment and experimental behavior in five countries," Working Papers 2012-26, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Aaron Tornell, 1998. "Reform from Within," NBER Working Papers 6497, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. MacCulloch, Robert, 1999. "What makes a revolution?," ZEI Working Papers B 24-1999, University of Bonn, ZEI - Center for European Integration Studies.
    9. Fredriksson, Per G. & Svensson, Jakob, 2003. "Political instability, corruption and policy formation: the case of environmental policy," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(7-8), pages 1383-1405, August.
    10. Garfinkel, Michelle R. & Skaperdas, Stergios, 2007. "Economics of Conflict: An Overview," Handbook of Defense Economics, in: Keith Hartley & Todd Sandler (ed.), Handbook of Defense Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 22, pages 649-709, Elsevier.
    11. Hernando Zuleta & Juanita Villaveces, 2008. "Conflict and negotiation: a game theoretical approach," Documentos de Trabajo 5148, Universidad del Rosario.
    12. Michael Mandler and Michael Spagat, 2003. "Foreign Aid Designed to Diminish Terrorist Atrocities can Increase Them," Royal Holloway, University of London: Discussion Papers in Economics 03/10, Department of Economics, Royal Holloway University of London, revised Dec 2003.
    13. Herschel I. Grossman & Murat Iyigun, 1993. "Population Increase, Extralegal Appropriation, and the End of Colonialism," NBER Working Papers 4488, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Patricia Justino, 2007. "Carrot or stick? Redistributive transfers versus policing in contexts of civil unrest," Research Working Papers 3, MICROCON - A Micro Level Analysis of Violent Conflict.
    15. Münster, Johannes & Staal, Klaas, 2005. "War with Outsiders Makes Peace Inside," Discussion Paper Series of SFB/TR 15 Governance and the Efficiency of Economic Systems 75, Free University of Berlin, Humboldt University of Berlin, University of Bonn, University of Mannheim, University of Munich.
    16. Joan-Maria Esteban & József Sákovics, 2005. "A Theory of Agreements in the Shadow of Conflict," Working Papers 255, Barcelona School of Economics.
    17. Bertocchi, Graziella & Spagat, Michael, 2001. "The Politics of Co-optation," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 591-607, December.
    18. Gradstein, Mark, 1999. "Optimal taxation and fiscal constitution," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(3), pages 471-485, June.
    19. Shankha Chakraborty & Era Dabla-Norris, 2006. "Rent Seeking," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 53(1), pages 1-2.
    20. Richard Cornes & Roger Hartley & Yuji Tamura, 2010. "A New Approach to Solving Production-Appropriation Games with Many Heterogeneous Players," CESifo Working Paper Series 3060, CESifo.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F02 - International Economics - - General - - - International Economic Order and Integration
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements

    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:nbr:nberwo:4420. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.