Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
廉价殖民主义：法兰西帝国（1830–1962）
Colonialism on the Cheap: The French Empire 1830–1962
摘要
How much did France pay for its colonial empire? Did colonies benefit from large transfers from French taxpayers and private investors, or were they, on the contrary, drained of their capital? This paper uses novel budgetary, private investment, and loan data to compute monetary flows between France and the colonies between 1833 and 1962. Public expenditure spent by France on the empire represented only 1.3 percent of its GDP, of which four-fifths was for the military. Trade balance deficits of French colonies were not counterbalanced by large public or private capital transfers from France to the colonies, but by military expenditure from the metropole. Overall, large sums of money were flowing from the colonies to the metropole, a “drain” representing a couple of percentage points of colonial GDP, making French colonies comparable to British India in the twentieth century.
中文摘要
法国为其殖民帝国付出了多少代价？殖民地是否从法国纳税人和私人投资者的大规模转移中获益，还是相反，其资本被抽空？本文利用1833年至1962年间法国与殖民地之间新的预算、私人投资和贷款数据，计算了双方的资金流动。法国在帝国上的公共支出仅占其GDP的1.3%，其中五分之四用于军事。法国殖民地的贸易逆差并未通过法国向殖民地的大规模公共或私人资本转移来弥补，而是由宗主国的军事支出所抵消。总体而言，大量资金从殖民地流向宗主国，这种“抽血”相当于殖民地GDP的几个百分点，使得法国殖民地在20世纪与英属印度具有可比性。