Migrant entrepreneurs typically hold diverse part-time portfolios rather than single enterprises.

Evidence

In the space of two and a half years, I built up case records on 71 Frafra entrepreneurs living in southern cities and their homeland (including both villages and the main town of Bolgatanga). One in five had assets worth more than £10,000 in the mid 1960s; half had accumulated £2,000 or more. These were substantial sums by Frafra standards, but only three were rich on a national scale. Men outnumbered women four to one. They usually maintained a diverse portfolio of investments; few were committed to managing a single enterprise. They were part-time petty capitalists: in the south, a third were still employed for wages and a further half had been employed fairly recently. The most common medium for investment was housing for rent (three-quarters of the sample); next in priority (each being an interest of half the sample) were trade — wholesale, retail, and commodity speculation; bars — beer and gin, food (most of the women were traders or caterers); machinery and plant producing services — flour mills, water supplies; and crime, including money lending at usurious interest rates. — Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking Cooperative…, 2359