The influence of colonizing countries on the economic and social indicators of their colonized

Abstract

The aim of this study was to analyze the influence of the colonies of Portugal, Spain and England on the development of the countries they colonized. To achieve this objective, a multiple linear regression was carried out based on institutional public data focusing on economic and social indicators that, after fulfilling the assumptions of the factor analysis, showed the relationship between the independent variable (Colonizer) and the two dependent variables. of this research (DS-Social Development and DE-Economic Development), which are predominantly quantitative. Although the results for the variable D.S provided little explanatory power from the colonizer, the regression analysis for the variable D.E, indicated that Portugal is the country that has the greatest relationship with the economic performance of the colonized countries, with R2 equal to 0.208. The theoretical support of this study suggests that a deeper understanding of the relationship between the variables analyzed, should take into account the historical context, especially with regard to the colonial administration model applied by European powers, called “Indirect Rule” and “Direct Rule”, which are related to the capacity of colonized countries to enhance and consolidate their developments (ACEMOGLU et al., 2002).