The concise economic history of Portugal – a comprehensive guide

Most research on British business in Latin America has concentrated on the free-standing companies, such as the railways, which characterised British investment before 1914. Apart from Royal Dutch Shell, the most important new British investments thereafter were manufacturing companies, which steadily increased their presence in the region. Some began to arrive before 1914, but several more made significant investments between the wars, especially in Argentina and Brazil, with a further wave of new investment after 1945. This paper utilises corporate archives, as well as those of the British government and Bank of England, to investigate the financial aspects of their growth. While the provision of finance for fixed investments and working capital was relatively straightforward before World War II, thereafter it became more difficult due to government regulation on both sides of the Atlantic, leading to ingenious solutions to overcome financial challenges.     

The Surly Bonds: American Cold War Constraints on British Aviation

The battle for dominance of the global aviation marketplaceafter 1945 was largely an Anglo-American competition, yet todate historians have overlooked the important role diplomacyplayed in shaping its outcome. Divisions over the proper regulationof strategically vital aircraft and aviation technology seriouslyimpeded aircraft manufacturers, British producers especially.This article traces the impact of Anglo-American diplomacy uponBritish aviation manufacturers during the first half of theCold War, from 1946 until the Sino-American rapprochement ofthe early 1970s. It explores three periods in particular: theinitial postwar years, highlighted by disputed British jet enginesales to the Soviet Union; the early 1950s, when British jetlinerexports seemed a genuine strategic threat in Washington; andthe early 1960s, when Whitehall authorized covert transfersof American-licensed aviation equipment to complete the firstBritish aircraft sales to the People’s Republic of China.These examples demonstrate not only the effect of strategicbalancing by governments on the marketplace, but also diplomacy’simpact on business.     

Big business in the Russian empire: A European perspective

This paper presents an inventory of the largest private companies in the Russian Empire in 1914, and their comparison to the largest contemporary British, German, and French companies identified by Youssef Cassis as ‘big business’. It focusses on three questions. First, how big was big business in Russia from a European perspective? Second, how did the structure of big business in Russia compare to that of other large European economies? And finally, how did foreign entrepreneurship appear in Russian big business? Drawing on new empirical evidence, it contributes to the discussion on the ‘backward’ and ‘peripheral’ character of the Russian economy before the First World War.     

British business and the politics of trade with the USSR during the New Economic Policy (NEP) 1

British commercial and political hopes to expand trade in the new Soviet state after 1920 were to an extent disappointed. Despite successful ventures by individual companies, in aggregate business fell short of expectations, especially compared with German and American competitors. The reasons were both (micro and macro) economic variables and political factors, in Britain and the USSR. From 1926 the Soviet regime was committed to rapid industrialization and a pattern of imports in which Germany enjoyed some comparative advantage. But, in contrast to major rivals, British governments occasionally tried to use trade as a political instrument to the disadvantage of commercial operations.     

The organisation of British textile exports to the River Plate and Chile: Merchant houses in operation,c. 1810–59

During c. 1810–59 over 260 British merchant houses operated in the River Plate or Chile, and many more in the rest of Latin America. These were times when Anglo-Latin American economic relations remained largely commercial, since the region was an important commercial partner of Britain. British investment was unimportant during this period in the region. The main economic activity of these mercantile houses was the import of textiles in exchange for bullion, specie, bills of exchange and local produce. Yet the textile trade has received little attention, despite the importance of the region as a market for British manufacturers. This paper describes in detail the relations between textile manufacturers and/or merchants in Britain and merchants on the spot, in particular for the marketing oftextiles, the backbone of the business of British merchants operating in Latin America. This paper focuses on the particular case of the Southern Cone during c. 1810–59.     

Social capital,institutional innovation and Atlantic trade before 1800

The growth of the Atlantic economy during the eighteenth century has been associated with developments in business networking to mitigate the hazards of communication in long-distance trade. Such social capital-based mechanisms reduced transaction costs, but also proved to have their limitations in the changing conditions of eighteenth-century international trade. This paper argues, using the example of the British slave trade, that efforts to innovate less personalised forms of commercial exchange gave those prepared to do so a considerable competitive advantage, and promoted the unprecedented expansion of that trade between 1750 and 1807. We suggest that this shift may be viewed as a precursor of modernising tendencies in business practice in Britain during the industrial revolution.     

Unions and Management in Engineering: A Case Study, 1964–79

Britain' direct investment overseas has become the subject of debate. Not only is much more known about British multinationals, but the concepts of investment groups and free-standing companies have further enriched the discussions. This study examines an example of British capital export – to the Brazilian coffee trade before and after the First World War. The case study illustrates the difficulties in developing typologies for direct investment abroad, and it also considers the managerial and organisational problems facing such companies for the businessmen who developed them. Further, the article speculates that the retreat of British commercial enterprise from Latin America before 1914 may have been more selective than was once thought.     

The Vicissitudes of a British Aircraft Company: Handley Page Ltd. Between the Wars

Focusing on government–business relations, this article contributes to the business history of the First World War. It examines how the linen industry was organised to meet military demand in both continental Europe and the UK. The German occupation of Belgium and northern France, and the consequent exploitation of raw material and manufacturing capacity, is an important theme. The article considers how the UK and Russia organised linen production and the role of establised Anglo-Russian commercial networks (including accountary firms) in facilitating wartime trade. Of major significance during the war was Trading with the Enemy legislation, and the article examines this in some detail before going on to look at the impact of government policy on the labour market at regional level. The article concludes that the war created new problems for the industry which contributed further to its secular decline.     

Colouring markets: The industrial transformation of the dyestuff business revisited

Using British and German price and trade data, the development of European dye markets in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is analysed. Traditionally, the markets were divided into a commercially important segment of premium dyes and a low-cost segment for mass consumption. The rise of industrially produced dyes came later and was more long-drawn-out than commonly assumed. Initially premium dyes did not enter the mass market before the 1880s, and even then no cost advantage over main natural dyes was achieved. Instead, newly created path dependencies and superior business organisation seem to have been the key to their success.     

The genesis of the electricity supply industry in Britain: A case study of NESCo from 1889 to 1914

A study of the Newcastle upon Tyne Electric Supply Company (NESCo) provides a micro-history of the emergence of the electricity supply industry in Britain up to the First World War. This research examines the role of social capital in the establishment and growth of NESCo, the only financially successful British electric power company. Temporal bracketing was adopted to evaluate two distinct time periods: emergence from 1889 to 1899; and growth from 1900 to 1914. Family, business and social networks together with geographical and political factors secured the company’s dominant position. The structural relationship with Merz & McLellan contributed to growth through acquisitions, joint ventures, and access to new markets.     

Speed Intensity and the Rise of the Chinese Economies

Producers of speed‐intensive goods, e.g. clothing or electronics, face markets that are in constant flux due to changing fashion or technology. Throughout the twentieth century, Chinese business networks have had a comparative advantage in producing speed‐intensive goods due to their quick reaction time. This comparative advantage was of relatively little value prior to the Second World War, but since the war, international telephone and air services have made international trade in speed‐intensive goods practical. This has caused the demand for speed‐intensive goods on the international market to grow at an extremely rapid pace. This growth in demand can explain the post‐Second World War economic booms experienced by Hong Kong, Taiwan and finally China.     

The Politics of Japan–China Trade and the Role of the World Trade System

The large and rapidly growing trade relationship between Japan and China has occurred against a backdrop of political tensions. This study measures performance of the trade relationship, benchmarking it against other trade flows worldwide, and examines the impact of the politics on bilateral trade performance. To do this, a frontier gravity model is estimated using core determinants of trade. This gives a benchmark against which to measure trade performance, explained using resistances to trade. While the economic relationship is not independent from the politics, an important conclusion is that trade has not been diminished or disturbed by politics to a significant extent. China’s commitment to the global trading system from the mid‐1980s and its accession to the WTO in 2001 has meant that tensions in the political relationship with Japan from time to time have not derailed, but rather have increasingly come to be dominated, by the economic relationship.     

The Profitability of Anglo-Chinese Trade, 1861–1913

Britain was China's major trading partner in the period between 1861 and 1913. During the whole of the period in question, China's import and export trade with Britain was controlled and handled almost entirely by British merchants. Yet the distribution of British goods imported into China was gradually taken over by the Chinese from the British. On the other hand, British merchants' attempts to control production and processing of export staples in China were generally unsuccessful. In other words, British traders did not manipulate prices at the expense of their Chinese counterparts as generally asserted. As a result, their general profitability situation in Anglo-Chinese trade was not very favourable. Instead of profits, they often made losses.     

国际贸易冲击与中国经济的周期波动

国际经济波动对我国经济周期的影响主要是通过国际贸易这个渠道实现的,本文在对我国对外贸易波动的特征及与经济周期相关性进行分析的基础之上,通过国际贸易乘数效应具体分析了国际贸易冲击对经济周期波动的影响,其结论表明国际贸易冲击对我国的经济周期波动产生了重要的作用和影响,出口每波动1%,会引发GDP波动0.25个百分点左右,随着我国对外贸易的快速增长,贸易波动对宏观经济的影响会进一步增加。     

‘An indispensable luxury’: British American Tobacco in the occupation of Germany, 1945–1948

Abstract

World War II devastated the international markets for British American Tobacco (BAT). This article uses new archival documents to show how BAT successfully navigated political and social obstacles in military-occupied Germany (1945–1948) to become the leading non-German tobacco concern in West Germany. It reveals BAT’s lobbying strategy used a ‘revolving door’ with the British and American occupation administrations and a targeted message that aligned with changing military priorities. This coordinated approach allowed BAT to overcome military resistance to big business, oppose high tobacco taxes, and push for greater foreign tobacco imports. It ultimately helped the company lay foundations for expansion.     

British Investment Banking and Industrial Decline before the Great War: A Case Study of Capital Outflow to Canadian Industry

The alleged anti-industrial bias of ‘the City’ is examined through a case study of a constellation of financial intermediaries that raised investment capital on the London market for Canadian manufacturing industry in the decade preceding the Great War. Reflecting the considerable institutional flexibility of the pre-war British capital market, these ‘investment banks’ ranged from established merchant banks to issue houses of recent origin as well as a few stockbroking firms and trust companies. All were eager to issue the securities of Canadian manufacturing enterprises despite the substantial risk associated with such business. Moreover, they were willing to take their profit in the common shares of such enterprises rather than cash commissions; although this increased the potential profit for servicing an industrial issue, it also escalated substantially the risk assumed in any single flotation, thus belying the image of British investment banks as traditional-bound and risk-adverse.     

The trade comovement puzzle and the margins of international trade

Countries that trade more with each other tend to have more strongly correlated business cycles. Yet, traditional international business cycle models predict a much weaker link between trade and business cycle comovement. We propose that fluctuations in the number of varieties embedded in trade flows may drive the observed comovement by increasing the correlation among trading partners' aggregate productivity. Our hypothesis is that business cycles should be more strongly correlated between countries that trade a wider variety of goods. We find empirical support for this hypothesis. After decomposing trade into its extensive and intensive margins, we find that the extensive margin explains most of the trade–productivity and trade–output comovement. This result is striking because the extensive margin accounts for only a fourth of the variability in total trade. We then develop a two-country model with heterogeneous firms, endogenous entry, and fixed export costs, in which the aggregate productivity correlation increases with trade in varieties. A numerical exercise shows that our proposed mechanism increases business cycle synchronization compared with the levels predicted by traditional models.     

Promoting SMEs in Africa

ABSTRACT

Under colonial rule, sub-Saharan Africa was self-sufficient in food production, and much produce was exported from Africa to Europe. Prior to obtaining independence, in 1957, Ghana-formerly British West African Gold Coast-had one of the most prosperous economies on the African continent. The same is true for Togo, which was administered as part of Afrique Occidentale Française from World War I until its independence in April 1960. Since these two countries obtained independence, however, Indigenous population growth has not been matched by a growth in agriculture and business activity. Today, both Ghana and Togo are net importers, even in basic grains. Can government policy help?     

The du Ponts

British industry is often portrayed as one of the main forces in favour of closer integration with western Europe. In the period prior to the rejection of Britain's first application to join the Common Market the Federation of British Industries (FBI) played a pivotal role between Whitehall and the wider business community. It had a role both in policy-making and in creating business opinion. However, this was not a static and sustained position: the influence of the leadership of the FBI fluctuated in both respects. It is argued that this reflected neither a corporatist nor a pluralist model of government–business relations. Rather it reflected the interdependencies which existed in this policy network and the changing dynamics of these interdependencies.     

Current and future changes in corporate attitudes to national identity

This commentary is a revised version of a speech that was delivered by the Honorable Thomas Harris to the Thunderbird community at the Glendale campus on February 6, 2001. Although the speech was delivered in 2001, its attendant concerns and arguments endure and are germane in today's global business considerations. Ambassador Harris is presently Her Majesty's Consul General and Director General of British Trade and Investment in the United States. Following his graduation from Cambridge University, Ambassador Harris joined the Board of Trade in 1966, and subsequently the British Diplomatic Service. His diplomatic career included stints in Tokyo, Washington, and Lagos. He has also held various appointments in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. His most recent overseas posting was as British Ambassador to Korea between 1993 and 1997. He was later appointed Director General for Export Promotion in the Department of Trade and Investments (now known as British Trade International), before taking on his present assignments in New York. As Director General of British Trade and Investment, he has overall responsibility for the promotion of British trade throughout the U.S. and for securing investment by U.S. firms in the United Kingdom. In 1995, Ambassador Harris was appointed by Her Majesty, the Queen of England, to be a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG). © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.