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Phd Defence Posthumus alumnus Mark van de Water
On 20 September 2023, Posthumus alumnus Mark van de Water defended his PhD thesis ‘The road to drain or gain’ at the Faculty of Humanities of Leiden University. Supervisors were Professor David Henley and Dr Thomas Lindblad, promotores were Professor Henley and Dr Jeroen Touwen.
The aim of Mark’s PhD dissertation is to explore the link between foreign investment and macroeconomic performance in the context of a colonial economic structure in Indonesia between c. 1910 and c. 1960. The main emphasis is on Dutch-owned private companies, although some attention will also be given to British investors. The target is to identify mutual effects of foreign investment and macroeconomic performance. Three specific questions are addressed: (1) How did volumes of private foreign investment change in response to business cycles in late-colonial and newly independent Indonesia? (2) To what extent did trends in profitability of foreign firms coincide with trends in macroeconomic performance? (3) What was the contribution of private foreign investment to Indonesia’s high dependence on exports of primary products and subsequent extreme vulnerability to vicissitudes in the world market? The point of departure is a series of published annual estimates of accumulated Dutch investment in colonial Indonesia from about 1910, coupled with summary statistics available in the secondary literature.
The N.W. Posthumus Institue congratulates Mark with his promotion.
