Austrian private investments in Hungary, 1850-1913

This article examines private Austrian investment in the Hungarian economy as an example of private financial investment in a backward foreign economy in the late nineteenth century. The main finding is the dominant role of Austrian investment in institutional securities such as Hungarian state bonds and bank securities, which comprised a steadily rising proportion in the portfolios of investors. The only other important sector of the Hungarian economy that was invested in directly was the transport system, which depended on the fluctuations in the development of the Hungarian economy rather than on long-term trends. Securities of the manufacturing sector did not attract the interest of most Austrian investors. Banks and the state thus constituted an element of stability in the Hungarian economy and helped it to acquire funds that could not be provided by the domestic market.