British capital and merchandise exports, 1870-1913: the bilateral case of New Zealand

Brian Varian

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: The Ford thesis argued that there was a short-term causal relationship between British overseas investment and British merchandise exports in the late nineteenth century. However, economic historians since Ford have found little empirical evidence in support of this argument. Using data on bilateral British lending, this article finds that such a relationship did exist, with British ex ante lending preceding merchandise exports by 2 years. A case study of New Zealand, which had an extraordinarily high share of Britain in its imports, reveals that the relationship was conditional upon the lending being allocated to social overhead capital.

Keywords: Britain; gold standard; New Zealand; overseas investment; trade (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F21 N73 N77 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-07-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his and nep-int
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in Australian Economic History Review, 3, July, 2017, 57(2), pp. 239-262. ISSN: 0004-8992

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http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/68925/ Open access version. (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: British Capital and Merchandise Exports, 1870–1913: The Bilateral Case of New Zealand (2017)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:68925

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