Gertrude Enderle-Burcel, Dieter Stiefel, Alice Teichova (Hrsg.): Sonderband 9. „Zarte Bande” – Österreich und die europäischen planwirtschaftlichen Länder / „Delicate Relationships” – Austria and Europe’s Planned Economies (2006)

Damir Jelic: “Living in the neighbourhood” - Economic Relations between Capitalist Austria and Socialist Croatia in Historical Perspective

Damir Jelic

The data on foreign workers and entrepreneurs in inter-war Yugoslavia and Croatia, as presented above, does indicate a high import rate of human capital from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy but also that the immigration rate of Czechs, Slovaks and Hungarians was higher than that of Austrians.

However, when we concentrate on foreign merchants only, the data could be more favourable. The immigration of the merchant class occurred in areas where it was possible for immigrants to find good business opportunities and a high level of domestic income. This could be found in agriculturally wealthy areas, such as Croatia and Slavonia, where there were strong domestic consumption activities and a relatively low level of human capital.

The following charts present the national structure of individual merchants in Croatia in 1919.24 In Croatia and Slavonia, merchants of foreign origin made up 34 percent of all calculated individual merchants, while Austrians and Germans took over a significant share of 17 percent.

Chart 4:

In order to understand the importance of human capital and business skills for penetration by foreign merchants, the analysis divided them, based on their business, into four main groups.25

This chart was based on data on small shops listed in the Yugoslav Compass 1919. Unfortunately, regarding the analysis of all merchants’ names, we were not skilled enough to distinguish between Austrian and German family names.

25 Group I - Skilled merchants in businesses which required technical know-how such as iron and metal products, machines, libraries, chemicals and drugs, ceramics and glass, forwarding and

256

National structure of individual merchants Croatia 1919