Economic History of Developing Regions

Business and Financial History of Colonialism

We invite submissions for a special issue of Economic History of Developing Regions on the Business and Financial History of Colonialism. The special issue examines how colonial and imperial systems mobilised capital, organised production and labour, generated returns, and distributed gains and costs within and between colonies and metropoles. We interpret these themes broadly. Contributions may for example examine banks, capital markets, firm performance, labour organization, or institutional change.

A key criterium for consideration for the special issue is that the research speaks to the economic/business history of colonial rule of countries in developing regions.

The issue is primarily focused on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and welcomes research from across the colonial world, including Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, and Latin America.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to:
• colonial investment, capital flows, and the financing of expansion, administration, infrastructure, and extraction;
• banks, stock markets, investors, insurers, public finance, taxation, debt, and monetary regimes;
• colonial firms, concessionary companies, plantations, mining enterprises, and trading houses:
• their performance, profitability, productivity, and business strategies;
• the recruitment and management of labour;
• the distribution of colonial gains and costs across firms, investors, workers, taxpayers, consumers, colonies, and metropoles.

We welcome contributions from economic history, business history, financial history, and related fields, and are especially interested in quantitative and archival research. Both case studies and comparative papers are welcome. We particularly encourage submissions from early-career researchers and scholars working on underrepresented regions.