Chapter 1: Introduction -- Part I: Research design -- Chapter 2: Historical context -- Chapter 3: Capital and colonialism in theory -- Chapter 4: Previous research -- Chapter 5: Method and data -- Part II: Aggregate results -- Chapter 6: The rate of return on investment in Africa -- Chapter 7:...

In this paper, we study the return on investments in mining for a whole century, starting in the "Golden Age" of resource exploitation in the late nineteenth century. We use a sample of more than 1,000 mining companies, registered on the London Stock Exchange 1869- 1969, but operating on all...