The gold standard,trade and recovery in the 1930s:

Abstract

For some twenty years, Norway's recovery from the depression of the 1930s has been explained by the supply-side transformation of domestic industry. This article presents an alternative view. By analysing Norwegian developments in an international context, the mechanism of recovery is related to the increased foreign demand for Norwegian export products following the ending of Gold Standard constraints in 1931. Generally, we argue that just as it was external forces that led Norway into the Great Depression, such forces also paved the way for the subsequent recovery. Increased exports renewed optimism in domestic markets, bringing about a growth in investment activities and eventually a recovery in private consumption.     

Nations,clusters and culture: Nycomed and world leadership in the field of x-ray contrast media

Abstract

The topic of the article is to offer a new interpretation of the history of Norway's agricultural protectionism in a West-European context. Agricultural protectionism was not deeply rooted economically, politically or institutionally prior to the Second World War. Before the First World War the most commercially oriented part of Norwegian agriculture – milk production and the dairy industry – was export-oriented. Norway was the last country to join the protectionist wave in the late nineteenth century and in practice it followed the most liberal trade policies in agricultural products next to Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands. It is argued that the 1920s were generally relatively more important and the 1930s relatively less important for later developments than assumed in the most of the literature on agricultural protectionism.     

Norway's liberalisation of trade and payments in the 1950s

Abstract

While historical scholarship has focused on the domestic macroeconomic adjustment to trade liberalisation of the 1950s in terms of fiscal, monetary and incomes policies, this study deals with the liberalisation itself. From the perspective of the domestic political economy it provides an account of Norway's policies towards the European trade and payments schemes. It argues that although national ambitions were constrained by multilateral European liberalisation, a successful policy mix of exploiting EPU credits, delaying import quota liberalisation and selectively raising tariffs was pursued. It also argues that the government's sympathy towards the stillborn Nordic customs union in 1954 originated in this policy mix.     

European integration and corporate restructuring: the strategy of Unilever,c.1957–c.19901

European integration and corporate restructuring: the strategy of Unilever, c.1957‐c.1990. While much has been written about the politics of European integration, discussion about the role of business in this process has been largely confined to lobbying activities. This article focuses on the business reaction to European integration. It highlights the constraints facing one of Europe's largest firms in building a regional detergents business. These included divergences in market demand and political obstacles to rationalization, but more serious was a corporate culture based around local decision making and consensus. The study demonstrates that a full understanding of the European integration process must incorporate a firm‐level analysis of how Europe‐wide businesses were built after 1957.     

Losing autonomy: the Norwegian central bank during the Second World War

In the mid‐twentieth century a number of central banks around the western world lost their operational autonomy and were placed under government control. The origin of these policy changes can be traced to the intellectual and political developments of the interwar era in addition to the introduction of the Bretton Woods monetary system. The Norwegian central bank offers a particularly stark example of this phenomenon: experiencing a rapid decline from its high level of autonomy in the interwar years, to a clear subordination to the government after 1945. Through an analysis of the correspondence between the main policy makers in the exiled Norwegian government and central bank management, this article contributes to the understanding of central bank autonomy by tracing the decisive factors that led to the Norwegian central bank's loss of agency.     

企业并购重组过程中文化的冲突与融合——荣事达集团企业文化案例研究

目前,我国企业通过并购重组来实现企业的快速扩展已经越来越常见,在企业并购重组的过程中,如何化解两个企业文化的冲突,成为并购能否成功和实现资源整合的关键。因此,并购重组中企业文化融合就成为一个不容忽视的问题。文章试图通过分析荣事达集团三次重大并购重组案例,对跨国企业间重组中的文化问题进行初步研究,探索总结重组并购中影响文化融合的关键因素及其应对策略。     

Mentality,motivation, and economic decision-making in Ancient Rome: Cicero and Tullia's shrine

Cicero's letters to his friend Atticus are an invaluable source for the study of the financial and economic activities pursued by Late Republican upper-class Romans. Beyond the information concerning the diversity, scale, and impact of their businesses, these extraordinary documents give enlightening testimonies to the psychological factors that affected economic behaviour and the process of decision-making. The case of Tullia's shrine, a complex operation that concerned the search for and purchase of a garden-estate in one of the most exclusive areas of the Roman suburbs, became Cicero's most personal challenge and obsession. An accurate study of this affair through the orator's own voice allows us to explore the concept of ancient rationality, as well as the psychological and environmental mechanisms that led to economic strategies and performances. The study also tests the applicability of ideas and methodologies from the field of behavioural economics in the context of the first-century BC real estate market, a fluctuating and speculative business sector highly informed by credit culture, social status, and unstable politics.     

论奥运会中的政治介入

现代奥林匹克运动会是当今世界上规模最大、影响最广、层次最高的竞技体育赛事,它是为了促进全世界人民相互了解,缓解战争和提倡世界和平的世界性民众聚会。但是由于它自身的特点及其发展,从它诞生之日开始就成了各种政治力量利用的舞台,它虽力图超越政治但却无法摆脱政治对它的影响。     

Latin American multinationals: A historical and theoretical approach*

Among the so‐called multinationals from the South, Latin American multinationals are outstanding for being pioneers. Their history goes even back to the end of the 19th century. In this article, we sketch a brief history of Latin American multinationals, but we concentrate on their development and growing importance since the 1980s within the context of economic reforms and globalization. We then apply a theoretical and typological perspective in order to characterize these multinational companies and to identify the elements that will condition their future behavior and development     

竞争、生产率外溢与东道国的产业发展

跨国公司是如何影响东道国的产业发展的？产品市场和要素市场的竞争会挤出内资企业，然而对内资企业正的生产率外溢将提高生产率、降低生产成本，从而提高利润。本文构建了一个简单的理论模型考察跨国公司的竞争效应和生产率外溢对东道国产业发展的影响。模型推导及数值模拟的结果表明，跨国公司对内资企业正的生产率外溢使竞争效应减弱，负的生产率外溢则使竞争效应增强；跨国公司出口销售更加有利于东道国的产业发展。     

Liner Shipping and Technological Innovation: Ostasiat and the Container Revolution, 1963–75

Abstract

This article examines the implications of technological innovation on liner shipping. In the 1960s and early 1970s, containerisation revolutionised liner shipping. The article asks how a well-established liner company, AB Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet, responded to the challenges of the container revolution. Despite being a late mover, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet nevertheless successfully adapted its liner network to the container technology. The basic argument is that organisational changes paved the way for Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet's successful transition from conventional liner shipping to container shipping. Before the container revolution, Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet had gained valuable cooperative experiences in a joint venture with a Norwegian and a Danish liner company. These organisational experiences were crucial to the survival of the Scandinavian lines in liner shipping in a time of technological change.     

The Murupara Project and Industrial Development in New Zealand 1945–65

In New Zealand, after the Second World War, the share of manufacturing in GDP rose relative to the share of agriculture. Although the government lacked a clearly articulated industrial policy, it was increasingly drawn into the promotion and support of firms in manufacturing. The Murupara pulp and paper scheme was the most spectacular instance of state intervention in the first two postwar decades. Tasman, the company set up to operate the pulp and paper mill, was a joint venture between the state, a New Zealand construction firm called Fletchers, and British multinationals. Tasman soon became New Zealand's leading exporter of manufactured products. The need to secure the market for Tasman's newsprint exports was one of the main reasons for the negotiation of a partial free trade agreement between New Zealand and Australia in 1965. This article explains the early history of Murupara, and discusses its contribution to industrial development and diversification in New Zealand.     

Host countries’ growth opportunities and China's outward FDI

In 2014, China proposed the Belt and Road policy, which has pushed China's outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to over tens of billions of US dollars. However, existing studies have not reached a consensus about the decisive factors in China's OFDI. To verify whether China's OFDI activities are motivated by profits, this paper applies a measure of country‐specific growth opportunities adopted by Bekaert et al. (2007) to measure the growth opportunities of the target countries for China's OFDI. A multinational panel data model, based on data from 51 countries from 2003 to 2012, is used to explore the relationship between host countries’ growth opportunities and China's OFDI. Overall, the analysis finds that China's OFDI does not follow the host countries’ growth opportunities but exhibits different features toward developed countries and developing countries. For developed countries, China's OFDI follows host countries’ growth opportunities to some extent. In the case of developing countries, China's OFDI does not follow host countries’ growth opportunities. When we consider factors such as a host country's financial development and political stability, improvement in these factors improves the attractiveness of the host country to China's OFDI. It is also found that the 2008 global financial crisis did not have a very significant impact on China's OFDI activities.     

Discussion of “Financial Statement Comparability and the Efficiency of Acquisition Decisions”

Chen, Collins, Kravet, and Mergenthaler (CCKM, 2018 ) is an empirical investigation of whether, after controlling for other known determinants of an acquirer's abnormal stock returns and expected and realized synergies, financial statement comparability impacts the investment decisions surrounding the acquirer's purchase of another company. The primary result is that higher financial statement comparability, as measured by De Franco, Kothari, and Verdi (DKV, 2011 ), yields improvements on outcomes associated with mergers and acquisitions. This discussion presents some criticisms of the DKV measure as applied to this study; the main criticism being whether the DKV measure captures accounting comparability or the risk of the target firm. The empirical results presented in CCKM are consistent with both explanations, thus making it difficult to disentangle CCKM's interpretation from an alternative explanation of their empirical findings.     

The creation of big business in the Swedish brewing industry during the aftermath of the Second World War

Abstract

Before the First World War, the Swedish brewing industry was organised into cartels that fixed prices and established distribution areas. During the inter-war years, the major combines in the three biggest cities strengthened their position, since they controlled the market in the most populated areas. Because of the agreements within the brewing cartel Bryggeriidkareförbundet, there was hardly any competition among the breweries and the only way to expand the business was to buy cartel-associated smaller breweries in the fixed ‘natural distribution area’. When the cartel ceased to exist in the mid 1950s, the agreements among AB Stockholms Bryggerier in Stockholm (StB), AB Pripp & Lyckholm in Göteborg (P&L) and AB Malmö Förenade Bryggerier in Malmö (MfB) were informally maintained. They managed to expand in their old distribution areas and beyond, but there was no interference in each other's home market.

This article examines why and how these agreements finally came to an end and the effects of the increased competition. The so-called ‘beer war’ between StB and P&L during the early sixties paved the way for negotiations, which in the end led to a merger of the breweries and a new big combine – Pripps – was created. We take up questions related to the formation of the company, its market expansion, the diversification and other organisational strategies. Pripps's monopolistic position on the Swedish market and the institutional pressure that followed started a process leading in the end to a reorganisation and a holding company, PRIBO, was formed in the early 1970s. A few years later the majority of PRIBO's brewing division (Pripps) was bought by the Swedish state and the rest of PRIBO was sold to one of the upcoming holding companies in Sweden during that time – Beijer Invest.     

基于能力模型的管道环焊缝缺陷修复制约因素分析及建议

近几年随着国内管道事故频发,管道环焊缝质量问题已经成为管道安全生产的重大隐患,为此国务院安委办、集团公司先后发文要求对已建管道环焊缝进行排查及隐患治理。按照相关工作要求,2019年,管道公司共需开挖验证2 620道焊口,截止到6月底管道公司仅完成全年工作量的33%,工作进度缓慢。通过分析管道公司各分公司缺陷修复时间,建立管道公司环焊缝缺陷修复能力模型,分析制约环焊缝工作进度的因素,并提出对应的建议,为后续类似项目提供借鉴和决策依据。     

Revisiting Sweden’s response to the Great Depression of the 1930s: economic policy in a regional context

This intra-Scandinavian comparison provides a corrective to existing comparative literature on Sweden's response to the Great Depression at three levels: policy conception, case selection and mode of explanation. The paper's holistic view of economic policy shows that the Swedish response was not just about fiscal policy. A broadly defined Swedish response becomes even less distinctive when compared with its Danish and Norwegian counterparts. The paper makes three points to explain the intra-Scandinavian variation (convergence and divergence). First, the regional-metropolitan context matters. Facing similar international challenges, the three small states developed a defensive reflex by striking domestic compromises, abandoning the gold standard, devaluing their currencies and effecting monetary expansion. Second, the political-economic development experience matters. On one hand, proportional representation entrenched Scandinavian farmers as a critical political force, thus ensuring agricultural protectionism across the region. On the other hand, the cross-national divergence in industrialisation largely shaped industrial policy: Sweden’s relative trade and domestic liberalism sharply contrasted with Denmark’s exchange controls and Norway’s import substitution. Third, ideology matters. Whereas the Danish Social Democrats’ traditional liberalism and their Norwegian counterparts’ radicalism buttressed fiscal orthodoxy, the Swedish Social Democrats’ ideational and programmatic renewal paved the way for the fiscal experiment of the crisis years.     

Clé Lesger,The Rise of the Amsterdam Market and Information Exchange – Merchants,Commercial Expansion and Change in the Spatial Economy of the Low Countries,c.1550–1630

Abstract

Between 1930 and 1935, Sverre Steen wrote four volumes of Det norske folks liv og historie [The Life and History of the Norwegian People], covering the period 1500–1814. He has now half completed the task of bringing the work further towards our own time in a comprehensive series entitled ‘Free Norway’. The first three volumes are devoted to political history in the period immediately following 1814. In this, the fourth volume, entitled ‘The Old Society’, Steen examines the social and economic history of the period 1814–1840. Both the title and the arrangement of the book indicate that Steen's intention is to provide a survey of the foundations of Norwegian society before continuing his work in further volumes, not only about ‘Free Norway’, but also about ‘New Norway’.     

Demographic trends in late-slavery Jamaica, 1817–32

Early nineteenth-century demographic trends on sugar estates in Jamaica, the most important British Caribbean colony, are examined through the 1817–32 public slave registers. We seek evidence regarding the background to the island's 1831–2 popular insurrection, the immediate cause of the London parliament's vote in 1833 to abolish colonial slavery. Some historians argue that the revolt occurred as ‘political’ effect from a sudden upsurge of metropolitan anti-slavery activism in 1830–1. They believe the uprising broke out despite improvement in enslaved people's material welfare, favoured by many slaveholders to secure population increase after the closure of the British transatlantic slave trade in 1808. Alternative ‘economic’ assessments judge that increasing workloads had been aggravating popular unrest before the revolt. Commercial pressures, and the imminent likelihood of emancipation, allegedly outweighed welfare concerns. The excess of slave deaths over births widened between 1817 and 1832. However, the registers show that demographic deficits resulted mainly from the ageing of the last Africa-born cohorts. Jamaica-born enslaved people became self-reproducing. There was no general pre-1831 regime deterioration. Most slaveholders sought to maintain their Jamaican assets for the long term through pro-natalist measures, and did not expect emancipation. The revolt's causes were thus more ‘political’ than ‘economic’.     

POLITICAL DEMOCRATIZATION AND KMT PARTY‐OWNED ENTERPRISES IN TAIWAN

This article will study how the existence of KMT party‐owned enterprises (POEs) and their development are related to Taiwan's democratization. POEs are profit‐making enterprises managed by the KMT, the former ruling party. All previous studies about the relationship between democratization and POEs only draw attention to the economic resource aspects of POEs. But the POEs were also KMT political resources in the form of enterprises and became policy tools to the ruling party. This study will argue that the existence of the POEs was a factor that maintained the KMT government and supported its stable management during the process of democratization. Moreover, POEs as political resources enabled Lee Teng‐hui as KMT chairman to demonstrate strong leadership and push ahead with the completion of democratization. But Lee's political mobilization of POEs expanded money politics and perpetuated these enterprises as one of the “authoritarian legacies” in Taiwan's democratic politics.