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Article: Opium and Empire: Some Evidence from Colonial-Era Asian Stock and Commodity Markets.(Statistical Data Included)
- Article from:
- Journal of Southeast Asian Studies
- Article date:
- June 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Cambridge University Press. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Lan Truong [*]
On the basis of a new database of stock and commodity prices, along with measures of government revenues, commodity exports and immigration, the article assesses the impact of the opium trade on the economies of colonial Malaya, the Netherlands Indies and China from 1873 to 1911. Stock returns for a few Malayan industries related to international trade are significantly correlated with opium price changes, as are prices for labour-intensive, Chinese-dominated export commodities such as tin and gambier. However, opium price changes explain, at most, only a small fraction of the behaviour of stock and commodity prices. On balance, stock and commodity ...