During the "Age of Mass Migration", many Chinese migrants came to the Netherlands Indies. We propose that these migratory flows included many skilled workers, contrary to the belief that they mostly consisted of unskilled labourers. We construct a new dataset of migration and potential surplus...

In Globalization and the Colonial Origins of the Great Divergence the intercontinental trade of the Dutch East India Company and its effects on living standards in a number of its colonies are analysed to shed light on several major debates in economic history.

Pim de Zwart examines the Dutch East India Company’s intercontinental trade and its effects on living standards in various regions on the edges of the Indian Ocean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Contrary to conventional views, De Zwart finds significant evidence of the integration...