Aufsätze (Articles)

Leslie Hannah
Corporate governance, accounting transparency and stock exchange sizes in Germany, Japan and «Anglo-Saxon» economies, 1870–1950 157
Modern discussions of corporate governance have focused on convergence of «varieties of capitalism», particularly the recent «Americanisation» of laws and voluntary codes in Germany, Japan, and other civil law countries. However German and Japanese legal and business historians have suggested that corporate governance, accounting transparency or other favourable factors in their countries were historically a match for – or even superior to – those in the US. An alleged consequence was deeper penetration by the Berlin and Tokyo stock exchanges of their domestic economies than of the US by the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), using measures such as market capitalization/GDP ratios. This paper reviews the classic Rajan and Zingales data on the sizes of stock exchanges. It concludes that the evidence for Japanese historical precocity relative to the US, after the necessary allowance is made for regional stock exchanges and corporate bond finance, stands up better to this closer examination than that for Germany.
Many financial historians now agree that stock exchange development was not historically determined by legal origins («Anglo-Saxon» common vs Euro-Japanese civil law), though today it appears to be driven by legal rules protecting shareholders and/or bondholders and limiting directorial autocracy and information asymmetry. However, both today and historically in some cultures private order rules (voluntary codes, bourse listing requirements, bankers as trusted intermediaries, block-holder monitoring, etc) offered substitute protections, or at least complemented protective laws. This paper reviews the plausibility of these determinants of historical stock exchange sizes – and others that have been neglected – in Japan, Germany, and elsewhere, before 1950.

Raphael Hennecke
Ein Erziehungskartell zur «Heilung der Geister»?
Ludwig Erhards Bundeswirtschaftsministerium und die gescheiterte
Wettbewerbsordnung der Konsumseifenindustrie von 1954/55 187
This article deals with a case study from competition policy and decartelization in West Germany in the early to mid 1950 s. Whereas much research has focused on the discussions about the German cartel law of 1958 and its long process of formation, this article takes a closer look at the possibilities that Ludwig Erhard and his Ministry of Economics already had under the Allied Laws of 1947 that remained in place until 1957. This is demonstrated by a case study about the soap cartel of 1954/55. While Erhard and most of his civil servants were aware that this cartel would not be able to solve the soap industry’s problems, they still decided to push the Allied authorities towards approving it to demonstrate the inadequacy of cartelization. Thereby, they dealt a blow to those leaders of industry associations arguing against a strict ban on cartels. One of Erhard’s most influential opponents, Fritz Berg, had praised the soap cartel, which allowed more internal competition than simple price fixing cartels, as a model for future cartels and an example proving the disadvantages of a flat-out cartel ban. By letting the cartel fail under the conditions of a rapidly modernizing market instead of banning it, Erhard dealt a major blow to Berg’s argument. This way, Berg and his allies could not blame the failure of the soap industry on decartelization.

Harald Wixforth
Schiffsfinanzierung im Wandel – Finanzintermediäre und maritime Wirtschaft am Finanzplatz Hamburg vom Kaiserreich bis zum Ende der Weimarer Republik 217
For more than 30 years bank-industry relations have been one of the most important subjects of financial research and history. Despite all research we are still lacking results on this topic for several branches of German industry, e. g. shipbuilding and shipping. Therefore, the article tries to analyze the relations between financial institutions and some of the prominent enterprises of maritime industry in Hamburg – in the 19th and 20th century the most important financial center in Northern Germany as well as place for shipping and shipbuilding. Finally, the article compares the results to those of other studies on bank-industry-relations in Germany in order to show whether there were specific characteristics in financing shipbuilding and shipping. Additionally, the article wants to stimulate further intensive research on this subject.

Sabine Pitteloud
The social desirability of offshoring: a Swiss consensus (1945–1975) 255
This article focuses on the evolution of the rhetoric and practice of corporate offshoring in Switzerland from the post-war economic boom to the industrial crisis in the mid-seventies. The virtue of a historical perspective on the issue of offshoring is to show how recent controversies have their roots in previous decades, suggesting the need to reassess recent debates about structural change in light of earlier experiences. Relying on the cultural and narrative perspective in business history, the article shows the emergence of an unexpected consensus about the legitimacy of corporate offshoring between employers, Swiss authorities and even Swiss labour unions after 1945. The explanation for that counter-intuitive alliance is found in the actors’ representations and discourse about what they considered to be excessive economic circumstances. Indeed, during this golden age of considerable economic expansion, demand exceeded supply and the Swiss firms constantly complained of labour shortages. Offshoring was therefore seen as a cure for the lack of workers within Switzerland and allowed multinational companies to focus on the most lucrative production activities. Swiss workers and unions shared this view, preferring some low-skill activities to be done outside the country rather than seeing the arrival of more foreign workers, who tended to be less unionised and who were accused of aggravating the housing shortage. In response, the Swiss authorities supported the offshoring process by providing some tariff favours to allow textile firms in particular to relocate their production abroad and to reimport it to Switzerland without paying taxes. Finally, the article shows how the consensus broke down after the economic downturn of the mid-70 s and how changing historical circumstances induced new diverging narratives about the social desirability of the offshoring phenomenon.

Aus aktuellem Anlass (For topical reasons)

Christian Kleinschmidt
Unternehmensgeschichte als «Nebenbeschäftigung» 274

Rezensionen (Reviews)

Christiane Eisenberg
Rainer Karlsch/Christian Kleinschmidt/Jörg Lesczenski/Anne Sudrow, Unternehmen Sport. Die Geschichte von adidas 292

Michael C. Schneider
Carsten Burhop/Michael Kißener/Hermann Schäfer/Joachim Scholtyseck, Merck 1668–2018. Von der Apotheke zum Weltkonzern 294

Nancy Bodden
Richard Winkler, Ein Bier wie Bayern. Geschichte der Münchner Löwenbrauerei 1818–2003 296

Mario Riederer
Köhler Ingo, Auto-Identitäten. Marketing, Konsum und Produktbilder des Automobils nach dem Boom 298

Sebastian Beck
Patrick Bormann/Joachim Scholtyseck, Der Bank- und Börsenplatz Essen. Von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart 300

Dietmar Bleidick
Bernd Mildebrath, Auswirkungen des Ersten Weltkrieges auf die deutsche Gas- und Wasserwirtschaft 301

Holm Arno Leonhardt
Dorothee Wierling, Mit Rohkaffee handeln. Hamburger Kaffeeimporteure im 20. Jahrhundert 303

Christian Kleinschmidt
Karin Hartewig, Kommerz und Kommunismus. Das Doppelleben des Grafikers Hermann Ahrens (1902–1967) 305

Kilian Steiner
Yves Vincent Grossmann, Von der Berufung zum Beruf. Industriedesigner in Westdeutschland 1959–1999, Gestaltungsaufgaben zwischen Kreativität, Wirtschaft und Politik 307

Peter Wegenschimmel
Johanna Wolf, Assurances of Friendship. Transnationale Wege von Metallgewerkschaftern in der Schiffbauindustrie, 1950–1980 308

Werner Bührer
Frank Bösch/Thomas Hertfelder/Gabriele Metzler (Hrsg.), Grenzen des Neoliberalismus. Der Wandel des Liberalismus im späten 20. Jahrhundert 310

Mitteilungen (Announcements)

Nachruf Prof. Dr. Toni Pierenkemper 313

Business History Review 315

Preis für Unternehmensgeschichte 322