In 1868, the prominent British firm, Jardine, Matheson & Co., opened the Niuzhuang Oil Mill, one of China’s earliest mechanized factories, but closed it in 1870. The mill faced no oppositions from local government officials but suffered from some technical defects. It produced better quality products that obtained higher prices. This essay argues that the mill’s failure had to do with high capital costs and low profitability.

This article presents a balance of the most significant research carried out in Spain on the public policies and business strategies that guided the implementation of different forms of forced labor under Francoism, during both the war and the dictatorship. It deals with the logic and economic impact of this type of punishment, attending to two main aspects. In the first place, the legal organization of forced labor is explained, and emphasis is placed on the role it played in mitigating the shortage of labor power in some sectors. In the second place, the article analyses the profit margins produced by this kind of labor in comparison with free labor, related to productivity levels. In this respect, important differences can be appreciated between work during the war and in the postwar period, as well as between work depending on the army and that of private companies.

The rapid development of the Chinese economy over the past several decades has stimulated new interest in the institutions, practices, and social formations that supported the development of business in China before the intensification of pressure from Western traders to conform to “modern” practices in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This article aims to provide a foundation for understanding merchant practice as it developed during the important years of market expansion during the last Chinese dynasty and to dispel some of the enduring myths about the Chinese merchant, his relationship to family, community, and the state, and the ideological constraints on his activities. To that end I examine several aspects of late imperial merchant culture, beginning with the everyday practices that allowed business to flourish in the Qing, turning next to the large social formations through which long-distance merchants in particular identified and pursued their interests, and ending with some preliminary thoughts on the impact of the laissez-faire policies of the last dynasty and their implications for post-Imperial China.

This article describes how a French family, the Jeans, built and expanded its wealth in Central Mexico in the first half of the twentieth century. It explains how this family, using a different strategy than other French businessmen who settled in that region, began in textiles and diversified into the financial and housing sectors. The article also explores whether the Mexican Revolution and the early agrarian reform programs affected their properties and/or economic activities. Finally, the article explains how a branch of this family linked into the most powerful media family in Mexico and persisted among the Mexican economic elite until today.

There is an on-going debate among scholars from various disciplines about economic institutions and their impact on economic development. The case of the Amsterdam Chamber of Insurance is relevant to this discussion and in particular to the part that focuses on the nature and development of contract enforcement mechanisms. Marine insurance was introduced in Amsterdam in the mid-sixteenth century and soon the insurance industry developed into a prospering business. Its development was of great importance to the expansion of long-distance trade as it reduced the financial consequences of risks inherent to maritime trade. However, the new industry with its complex contracts was prone to misunderstandings, fraud and deception, creating the need for an independent, specialised court. The Chamber of Insurance was established as a generalised court, rather than a particularised court as was the case in cities that preceded Amsterdam’s trade dominance. Why did the Amsterdam municipality choose to set up this court and what were the implications? A recently discovered Statute Book of the Chamber gives insight into why the Chamber was established, how it functioned within the setting of Europe’s dominant trade centre and how it has affected the development of similar courts in the Netherlands.

Following the loss in 1712 of its previous monopoly over British trade with West Africa, the Royal African Company found itself unable to compete with smaller, lower-cost British slave traders and nearly collapsed entirely. Salvation seemed to arrive in 1720 in the person of James Brydges, the Duke of Chandos, who led a massive re-capitalization of the company and made the strategic decision to move its focus to the commodity trade between Europe and Africa and on the search for new botanical and mineral resources in Africa itself. While Chandos directed the RAC’s employees in implementing this radical new scheme, he kept it secret from his fellow shareholders, leading them to believe that his plans were aimed at revitalizing the company’s mature but declining line of business in the transatlantic slave trade. The Duke’s strategy, however, proved overly ambitious and failed to reverse the company’s decline.

The aim of this article is to clarify and discuss the various ways firms can make workforce reductions. How do managers perceive the options for downsizing and why do they implement a particular mix of measures before another? These questions are addressed in relation to the downsizing process undertaken in the 1920s by the Swedish Tobacco Monopoly, a state-owned company that had to balance between rational business conduct and social responsibility. The study makes use of rich primary sources, such as board minutes and memos, from the company and from the Tobacco Workers’ Union. Its main contribution is to move beyond the simple characterization of reductions as being either smooth or harsh and instead emphasize the multitude of choices involved in reducing head count. The article also emphasizes the active roles of managers and union officials in shaping reductions and the overall characteristics of the organization.

A growing body of research in economics and in business and economic history has shown the key role of bankruptcy and insolvency law on business organization, firms’ governance, and entrepreneurial choices. Most research, however, has focused on the formal aspects of laws, and still little is known on how various systems worked in practices. This paper fills this gap in the literature analyzing the functioning of bankruptcy procedures in four main European economies (Italy, France, England, and Germany) between ca.1880 and 1914. Using an original data set and descriptive statistics on length, organization, and return of procedures, the paper shows how the aim of attracting debtors was more successful in the less regulated English system, but how the protection of creditors’ rights was more efficiently pursued in France and Germany. Italy appears as the absolute worst performer.