Avoiding Holdup: Asset Specificity and Technical Change in the Cuban Sugar Industry, 1899–1929

1994 ◽  
Vol 54 (3) ◽  
pp. 628-653 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Dye
Keyword(s):  
Technical Change ◽  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Asset Specificity ◽  
Western Region ◽  
Site Specificity ◽  
Incentive Structure ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Cuban Sugar ◽  
Relative Decline

Asset specificity can have profound influences on the economic structure of a country. An example is post-colonial Cuba. This article demonstrates that the existence of site specificity in assets generated problems of holdup for sugar mill owners in their contractual relations with cane suppliers. Recognition of that incentive structure offers an institutional explanation for the post-1900 concentration of U.S. investment in the eastern provinces. To reduce transaction costs, mill managers avoided investing in the western part of the island where the sugar industry was well established. A consequence was the relative decline of the western region.

Cuban Sugar Industry

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Curry-Machado
Keyword(s):  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Cuban Sugar

Simulating the Two Views of the British Industrial Revolution

2000 ◽  
Vol 60 (3) ◽  
pp. 819-841 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Knick Harley ◽  
N.F.R. Crafts
Keyword(s):  
Productivity Growth ◽  
Technical Change ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Economic Structure ◽  
Trade Data ◽  
Trade Model ◽  
Computational General Equilibrium ◽  
Cge Modeling ◽  
Food Imports ◽  
New View

This study examines technical change, trade, economic structure, and growth during the British Industrial Revolution by means of computational general equilibrium (CGE) modeling. It rejects Peter Temin's contention that our “new view” of sectorally concentrated productivity growth is inconsistent with industrial export data. A CGE trade model with diminishing returns in agriculture and realistic assumptions about consumer demand shows that while technical change in cottons and iron were major spurs to exportation of those specific goods, the need for food imports also stimulated exports generally. Incorporating trade data thus enriches our “new view.”

scholarly journals Sugar and Democracy in Fiji: the Material Foundations of Post-Colonial Authoritarianism 1970-2005

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Keiran Barbalich
Keyword(s):  
Land Tenure ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
Sugar Industry ◽  
Market Price ◽  
World Market ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Tenure System ◽  
Land Rents ◽  
Land Tenure System ◽  
Sugar Exports

<p>Fiji became independent in 1970, and functioned for 17 years under a constitution with democratic elements, including elections. Three times since 1987, however, armed force has overthrown constitutionally elected governments. Some observers see this as a failure of the consolidation of Fijian democracy, while others acknowledge the facade of Fijian democracy. Among those who acknowledge Fiji's authoritarian institutions, conflict persists as to whether authoritarianism is the inevitable product of ethnic conflict in Fijian society, or a consequence of post-colonial institutional legacies. No movement toward democracy in Fiji is likely to succeed until we understand the material foundations underlying Fiji's authoritarian politics. This thesis argues that Fiji' authoritarian political institutions, established under colonial rule, have been sustained since independence by forces in the international economy. These forces have helped to maintain the economic, social and political dominance of a Pacific-Fijian chiefly elite over Fijian society. Specially, chiefly control of the sugar industry, Fiji's principal export, has provided chiefs with sufficient patronage resources to retain their control over Fijian society through electoral politics or, at the event of undesirable electoral outcomes, through armed opposition. Through post-colonial structures, the chiefs control the land-tenure system, and through their setting and receipt of land rents, they have been the principal beneficiaries of Fiji's sugar exports. This comparatively inefficient industry, and the social and political institutions that it rests on, have survived because Fiji, as party to the European Union's Sugar Protocol, has received two-and-a-half to three times the world market price for its sugar exports between 1975 and 2009. This thesis makes its case through close textual analysis of Fiji's three constitutions, detailed inspection of Fiji's land-tenure system, and, specifically, the accounts of the Native Land Trust Board, as well as examination of the secondary literature on Fiji's sugar industry.</p>

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