French companies and the financing of industrialization in Brazil

Abstract

This small article is part of a communication about French firms in Spanish
America. This one is only about Brazil. On Brazil we had two opportunities to study the
history of French investments in that country during the XIXth and XXth centuries. Here
we are passing from a macroeconomic and global to a microeconomic and entrepreneurship
point of view. The French position in Brazil since 1800 can be resumed in some words: a
very weak demographic presence but a very strong cultural one and an economic one in
between. Of that economic presence we did not study the commercial aspect but only the
financial one. It looks convenient to remember to our public some typical features of this
financial aspect before examining some types of French firms that engaged in the Brazilian
economy.

JEL Classification: N66; N63; N76; N73.