{"title":"Frontmatter","authors":"","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-frontmatter2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-frontmatter2","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"9 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126775814","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Economic Cultures and Debates on Taxation in Italy after World War II: 1943–1948","authors":"P. Bozzi","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This contribution analyses the change in the conception of taxation which occurred in Italy during the aftermath of World War II. From being a neutral mechanism to collect state revenue, in this period taxation became seen as a powerful political tool to redistribute income and wealth. The article primarily relies on material collected by the Economic Commission of the Ministry for the Constituent Assembly set up in 1945, a unique source which offers a comprehensive overview of the different conceptions of taxation at the time. Drawing upon their different economic and political ideologies, liberal economists and entrepreneurs, Christian Democrats, and Communists formulated alternative tax programmes. While liberal economists and entrepreneurs advocated the maintenance of the existing tax system on technical grounds, the Christian Democrats imposed a new conception of taxation as a means for income redistribution. Progressive and redistributive taxation was also present in the Communist programme, but their ambiguous tax views suffered from the lack of administrative and economic experience which liberal and Catholic economists had instead gathered before and partially even during the Fascist regime. The debate ended abruptly in 1947 with the exclusion of the left from government and the success of liberal conceptions. Nonetheless, during the 1960s, the Catholic emphasis on progressive and redistributive taxation incorporated the new Keynesian ideas on public finance and achieved a hegemonic position in the public debate, thus overcoming the traditional liberal view.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129795972","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"O.M.W. Sprague (the Man Who “Wrote the Book” on Financial Crises) meets the Great Depression","authors":"H. Rockoff","doi":"10.3386/w29416","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w29416","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract When the Great Depression struck the United States, O.M.W. Sprague was America’s foremost expert on financial crises. His History of Crises under the National Banking System is a frequently cited classic. Had he diagnosed a banking panic and called for an aggressive response by the Federal Reserve, it might have made a difference; but he did neither. Sprague’s misdiagnosis had, I argue, two causes. First, the crisis lacked the symptoms of a panic, such as high interest rates in the New York money market, which Sprague had identified from his studies of previous crises. Second, Sprague’s macro-economic ideas led him to conclude that increasing the stock of money would be of little help once a depression was underway. Sprague’s main concern was that abandoning the gold standard would intensify the crisis, a concern that led him to resign his position as advisor to the U.S. Treasury to protest Roosevelt’s gold policy.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"101 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131714954","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nitrogenous Fertilisers in Germany – Paths of Distribution from Chile Saltpetre to Haber-Bosch-Ammonia and Cyanamide (ca 1914–1930)","authors":"C. Strotmann","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper focusses on nitrogenous fertilisers in Germany and how they were distributed from the First World War into the 1930s. Since the availability of the fertilisers kept changing at a fast pace in the period under discussion here, the focus lies on policies concerning the production of nitrogen and the markets for nitrogenous fertilisers. The paper discusses the impact of the development of a (nearly) entirely new domestic nitrogen industry during the First World War on the market for nitrogenous fertilisers during the war and interwar period, up until the foundation of an international nitrogen cartel in 1930.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"80 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123541635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Oilseed Cakes in Italy and France: Opportunities and Difficulties of a Market (late 19th and first half of the 20th Century)","authors":"L. Andreoni","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper addresses the trade and commercialisation of oilseed cakes (residues from the extraction of oils) and press cakes in Italy and France during the last decades of the 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. It tries to demonstrate that the diffusion of oilseed cakes for livestock, a distinctive sign of the intensification of breeding that involved all of Europe, or as organic fertilisers, took place at the crossroads of multiple dynamics. Trade policy of the states, industrial choices and development paths of the different rural worlds help to explain the variations in timing, spatial scale and methods used. The spread of oilseed cakes confirms that the modernisation of European agriculture happened on different and interrelated fronts.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"29 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114267255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Schools of Empiricism","authors":"Andreas Friedolin Lingg","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent research emphasizes that empiricist approaches already emerged long before the seventeenth and eighteenth century. While many of these contributions focus on specific professions, it is the aim of this article to supplement this discourse by describing certain social spaces that fostered empiricist attitudes. A particularly interesting example in this respect is the mining region of the Erzgebirge (Saxony) in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. The following article will use this mining district as a kind of historical laboratory, as a space not only for scientific observation but also as a structure within which specific forms of knowledge were socially tested, to show how the economic transformation of this region supported the rise of characteristic elements of empiricist thinking. It is common practice to link the appraisal of useful knowledge, (personal) experience and the distrust towards (scholastic) authorities in those days with only small minorities. By addressing not only the struggles of the commercial elites but also the challenges faced by the average resident of a mining town, this paper tries to add to this view by demonstrating how entire masses of people inhabiting the late medieval Erzgebirge were affected by and schooled to think in empiricist ways.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121848316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Management of Soil Fertility and Agricultural Intensification in NW Iberia, 1750–1900","authors":"Beatriz Corbacho González, Roc Padró Caminal, David Soto Fernández, Lourenzo Fernández Prieto","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article describes agricultural practices of fertilization in the NW of the Iberian Peninsula between 1750 and 1900, where a leguminous plant called gorse (Ulex Europaeus) was used as bedding for livestock in order to produce manure. During the period examined, this whole region experienced a process of agricultural intensification which resulted in a net loss of nutrients in the soil. Peasants dealt with the increasing nutrient requirements by adapting land and livestock management in order to produce more manure during the second half of the 20th century. However, this was done at the expense of nutrient reserves in extensively managed areas, all of which resulted in an unsustainable agricultural pattern. Our data also suggest that the context of nutrient scarcity could be related to changes in the migration pattern, which started to be more intense after 1850 and preferred distant destinations (America), thus switching from seasonal to permanent stays.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"42 5","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"120995096","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Die Gauwirtschaftsberater der NSDAP","authors":"Ralf Stremmel","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract At least 129 Gau economic advisers of the NSDAP worked at the intersection of politics and economics, wielding a considerable amount of power. At the regional level, they were able to have a say in the success and existence of corporations. The article examines this group’s organization and remit, as well as resources in power and capital. Along the lines of collective biographies, it covers the aspects of generation, origin, socioeconomic status, fluctuation, and entry into the Nazi party. While no homogenous type of Gau economic adviser or a pattern of action could be identified, the final part of the article outlines common aspects and presents five ideal types of Gau economic advisers.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"41 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116037276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fertilisers in the Long 19th Century and Beyond: Usage, Commercialisation and Production (c 1800–1939)","authors":"C. Strotmann, L. Herment, A. Page","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The introduction to the volume provides an overview of processes in the industrialization of agriculture in the 19th and 20th centuries with regard to fertilisation. It explains the interplay between the intensification of fertiliser usage and agricultural output which enabled immense population growth. It shows how chemical discoveries surrounding nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus (NPK) eventually led to a diversification of markets and the formation of big fertiliser businesses. Indeed, every specific fertiliser chain was linked to a wide set of markets and institutions, as to stakeholders with various and potentially conflicting interests. This issue aims to shed light on this aspect within several regions across Europe and beyond.","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115898845","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The French Nitrogen Industry during the Interwar Period: The Ambiguous Relationship between the State and Manufacturers","authors":"M. Llopart","doi":"10.1515/jbwg-2021-0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/jbwg-2021-0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract At the end of the First World War, the French government seized the opportunity to acquire the chemical processes of the German firm BASF, including the Haber-Bosch process. This patent made it possible to synthesize nitrogen from the air and thus produce nitrogen fertilizers in large quantities. French industrialists, however, refused to acquire these patents, and to make up for this lack of private sector involvement, the French Parliament decided in 1924 to create a national plant (ONIA), which became the first state-owned plant to be exposed to market competition. The intention was for the ONIA to supply the army with nitric acid in times of war, and, in peacetime, to sell fertilizers at the lowest possible prices in order to curb the monopoly of the private industry cartel. The purpose of this article is therefore to study the establishment and organisation of the French market for nitrogen fertilisers during the inter-war period by raising a number of questions about the ambiguous and complex relations between the state and private industry in this strategic sector. Why was the state policy initiated with the ONIA not successful at first? From 1927-1928, once the ONIA was operational, why and how did the public and private players jointly organise the marketing of fertilisers even though their interests were partially divergent? From the economic crisis of the 1930s onwards, how did the regulation of this mixed market evolve and how were public/private tensions overcome? In the French case, why did French producers leave the international cartel very early on in favour of state protectionism? And finally, to what extent can it be said that this “managed economy” framework succeeded in satisfying all the players in the French nitrogen industry?","PeriodicalId":195429,"journal":{"name":"Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook","volume":"66 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-04-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115417584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}