Globalization, Natural Resources and Foreign Investment: A View from the Resource-Rich Tropics

Gregg Huff

Working Papers from Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow

Abstract: This article uses data drawn from Southeast Asia and West Africa to help explain the geographical distribution of foreign investment. Why during late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century globalization did the attributes of abundant natural resources, mass migration and export expansion that attracted large foreign investment to the New World not similarly draw capital to the tropics? I argue that in a number of tropical countries, rich natural resources and cheap labour available through mass migration effectively substituted for foreign borrowing. At the same time, the dominant institution of colonialism throughout Southeast Asia and West Africa limited borrowing from abroad and helped to ensure that even for these resource-rich countries capital flows remained slight.

Keywords: 19th century UK foreign investment; tropical growth; globalization; vent-for-surplus; natural resources; institutions; colonialism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: N10 O10 O13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2007-07
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_33616_en.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gla:glaewp:2007_16

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Business School Research Team ().