Search

This open access book presents the evolution of the Spanish economy over the past seven centuries since the end of the Reconquest and examines how much economic progress has Spain achieved, as well as its impact on living standards and income distribution over the very long run. It shows that preindustrial Spain was far from stagnant, although levels of output per head in the early nineteenth century were not much different from those on the eve of the Black Death (1348). It further discusses how phases of simultaneous per capita output and population expansion and shrinkage alternated, lending support to the recurring growth and frontier economy hypotheses. While a collapse in the 1570s gave way to sluggish growth and higher inequality after a long phase of sustained growth and lower inequality, the book shows how real per capita income has improved substantially over the last two centuries, driven by increased labor productivity, and derived from more intense andefficient use of physical and human capital per worker. Presenting exposure to international competition as a stimulus for this development, the book sheds light on the underperformance of Spain up to 1950 in a European comparison and describes the catch-up of Spain’s economy with more advanced countries until 2007. Finally, the book explains how modern economic growth is associated with an increase in the material well-being of its inhabitants, as the most dynamic economic phases of the last century have been associated with an improvement in income distribution, although the relationship between growth and inequality has not been linear. This book is a must-read for students, researchers, and scholars of economics and economic history interested in a better understanding of cliometrics, long-run analyses, economic development, economic growth, as well as the Spanish economy.

This open access book examines the long-term impact of Christian missionaries in Zambia, and sub-Saharan Africa more generally, on education, health, and economic development. It examines how Christian missionaries provided Western-style education and healthcare within sub-Saharan Africa during the 20th century and how this was provided along unequal gender and regional lines. With sub-Saharan Africa currently facing challenges in the provision of essential public goods and services, the legacy of Christian missionaries in Zambia provides an insightful case study for better understanding how gendered education and regional health inequality have hindered economic development in this region. This book offers a new perspective on colonialism and the economic challenges faced within Africa. It will be relevant to students and researchers interested development economics and economic history.

Urban Lives emphasizes the importance of a micro-level approach in examining the lives of individuals and families in an industrial city, spanning over a century. The work deepens the understanding of major societal shifts and how they are intertwined with demographic behavior over the past 120 years. These societal transformations encompassed groundbreaking advancements in living standards, a relocation of rural populations to urban hubs, and significant alternations in the fabric of everyday working life, ultimately reshaping people’s lives. In conjunction, there were changes in individual life courses, particularly how individuals experienced basic demographic events: births, deaths, marriage, and migration. The volume explores family dynamics, the evolution of health disparities and mortality inequality, the paths of social and economic mobility, and the changing landscapes of immigration and residential segregation. It fills a void in the narrative of twentieth-century demographic, social, and economic history and paints a portrait of how personal choices and behavior were shaped by societal transformation. These shifts, closely linked with industrialization and post-industrialization, coincided with the emergence and culmination of the welfare state. Through the lens of the Swedish industrial city of Landskrona, the volume closes the gap between historical studies and contemporary research, offering original insights into a period seldom explored with a micro-level perspective.

In the past, Berlin flourished as a capital city, not so much due to the subsidies provided by Prussia and the empire but because these regimes understood and utilized it as a capital city. It became an imperial city and then a legendary European metropolis in a rather indirect way. This volume examines the relationship between capital city and state, as well as the independent role that Berlin had as a flourishing center of business and finance.

Mit Blick auf den Vereinigungs- und Transformationsprozess der 1990er-Jahre stellt sich dabei die Frage, ob es Alternativen zu den eingeschlagenen Wegen gab. Bei der Suche nach Antworten führt der Weg auf eine Ebene, die für die einstmalige Arbeitsgesellschaft DDR von identitätsstiftender Bedeutung war: die Ebene der Betriebe, der dort Beschäftigten und ihrer Erfahrungen aus der Zeit, in der die wirtschaftliche und soziale Struktur in den neuen Ländern radikal umgestaltet wurde. Wie verliefen diese Prozesse? Welche Rolle spielten dabei Gewerkschaften und betriebliche Interessenvertretungen? Wie erfolgreich waren die vielfältigen Protestaktionen zum Erhalt von Betrieben und Arbeitsplätzen? Und welche Bedeutung nimmt dieses Engagement in den Erfahrungen der Betroffenen und in der medialen Öffentlichkeit ein? Dies sind die Kernfragen, die in dem vorliegenden Band thematisiert werden.

This book concentrates on the political economies of Germany and France in the period spanning between the end of the Second World War and the 1970s, with a subsequent consideration of Italy and Britain as ‘shadow cases’. European postwar accounts have never reconciled the thwarting of widespread aspirations to socialism, and the twin feat of equalitarian growth and institutional stability. This success is precisely due to achieving the reconciliation of democracy and economic management, the yearning for collective control over social and material outcomes that was tragically aborted in the interwar period, and fed 1945 expectations. Germany, in 1948–49, and France, in 1958, carried radical institutional and policy reforms with much more in common than previously realised. Under the recast republics, social groups were steered towards support for modernisation – by the state, not through a mythical settlement. Consensus was built for trade and low inflation as vectors for higher productivity. State capacity was lifted by leadership in ideas, executive branch accountability to voters, and technocratic agencies. British and Italian underperformances reveal the countries’ uneasiness with the compact. Once understood, the convergence of productivism and democracy in the European regulatory state provides a new narrative – especially relevant today – of experts taming populists.

This Open Access book examines the long economic boom experienced in Ireland between the late 1980s and 2007, analysing why this boom occurred. The book situates Ireland as a relative latecomer to economic development, with specific challenges and advantages inherent to this position. It discusses the risks involved in remaining reliant on foreign companies, exploring how in Ireland’s case the rapidly growing economy required active, interventionist and imaginative policy measures rather than relying primarily on free market forces. The book also offers an estimation of the value of the net foreign earnings associated with different categories of exports after deducting the profit outflows and payments for imported inputs, revealing a number of findings about the importance of Irish indigenous companies and services during this time. It shows that Irish indigenous companies, assisted by industrial policy measures, played a significant part, as did the services sector,alongside the more visible and widely recognised role of foreign multinationals in high-tech manufacturing. Offering fresh insights and analyses more than 15 years after the long boom ended at the precipice of the global financial crisis, this book will be a useful resource for economic historians, scholars of political economy and macroeconomic policy, as well as those interested in modern Irish history more broadly.

What was it like to be a woman in service in early modern England? More fundamentally, who were these women? Where did they come from? In what kinds of households did they work and what were they hired to do? How did their lives intersect with the local communities in which they lived? Female Servants in Early Modern England answers these questions by exploring over 1000 witness testimonies from English church courts which record the experiences of women in service between 1532 and 1649. Drawing a wide circle around the experiences of women in service, this book analyses their lives from demographic, geographical, economic, and social perspectives. Combining quantitative and qualitative analysis of evidence, Female Servants in Early Modern England challenges our understanding of service in several key ways. These women, it argues, were intrinsic to the economy, contributing their labour to a range of types of work. Despite being itinerant workers, they were nonetheless embedded in social networks and communities. Though service is seen as a rigid institution designed to regulate labour and youth, this book shows it to have been contingent, operating with a flexibility unsanctioned by law and policy makers but nonetheless accepted within early modern society.

This open access book is the first to provide an analysis of the Dutch paper industry over a period encompassing six centuries. Responding to a trend of renewed scholarly interest in paper industries and production, the book seeks to illuminate the factors behind this relatively small national industry’s centuries-long survival. Previous historical research has shown that sets of colonial, trade, merchant and family networks, tightly interwoven through a dense web of capital, were crucial for paper production and trade in early modern Europe. This book situates the Dutch paper industry within these overlapping contexts and their shifting dynamics over time, and historicizes the challenges and obstacles it had to overcome through four phases of capitalism: the rise of Dutch capitalism (1580–1815), Dutch monarchic liberalism (1815–1914), Fordism (1914–1980), and post-Fordism (1980 until now). Each chapter covers not only technological advancements in the industry, but its development alongside further determining dimensions, such as state-industry relations (industry policies), labour-capital relations (unions) and competition and cooperation, overall painting a picture of how the industry adapted to and endured changes in national and global networks surrounding the industry. This book will be of broad interest to scholars of economic and business history, as well as industrial history, political economy, and management studies.

Depuis l’introduction de l’assurance obligatoire des soins en 1996, les controverses sur l’organisation et le financement de l’assurance-maladie, les coûts croissants du système de santé ou encore les relations tendues entre assureurs et professions médicales, constituent autant de points d’achoppement majeurs de la politique suisse. Malgré cette actualité brûlante, l’histoire du système de santé demeure largement méconnue. En s’appuyant sur des archives jusqu’alors inexploitées, ce livre éclaire pour la première fois l’histoire de longue durée des caisses-maladie, qui forment le socle institutionnel du système de financement des soins. Il révèle la façon dont les myriades de sociétés de secours mutuels du XIXe siècle, à fort ancrage local et s’adressant en premier lieu aux hommes de la classe ouvrière, se sont transformées au cours du XXe siècle en caisses-maladie opérant sur l’ensemble du territoire national. La diffusion de l’assurance-maladie auprès de couches toujours plus larges de la population a modifié la gouvernance et le fonctionnement des sociétés mutuelles, qui ont progressivement adopté les technologies commerciales issues du monde de l’assurance-vie. Cet effacement des anciens idéaux mutualistes et leur remplacement par des mécanismes de marché se sont accompagné d’une concentration sectorielle croissante et ont conduit à l’émergence, après la Seconde Guerre mondiale, de l’assurance-maladie en tant que produit de consommation de masse.

Wie bestritten Handwerkerfamilien ihren wirtschaftlichen Alltag? Der Schlüssel zum Verständnis liegt in ihrer beruflichen und räumlichen Mobilität Unser Verständnis von Arbeit ist einem starken Wandel unterworfen. Zunehmend werden mit Job Sharing, Homeoffice und Teilzeitarbeit flexiblere Arbeitsmodelle gefordert und erprobt. Zugleich nimmt weltweit die Zahl der sogenannten working poor zu - Personen, die mit nur einer Erwerbsarbeit nicht genug verdienen, um ihren Lebensunterhalt zu bestreiten. Die vormoderne Arbeitswelt war der unseren in mancher Hinsicht ähnlich. Oft gingen Ehepartnerinnen und -partner verschiedenen Erwerbsarbeiten nach, waren in mehreren Berufen tätig. Frauen und Männer, Töchter und Söhne trugen zum Familieneinkommen bei. Frauen waren Meisterinnen, Lohnarbeiterinnen, Unternehmerinnen. Nicht nur beruflich, auch räumlich waren Handwerkerinnen und Handwerker überaus mobil. Der mikrohistorische Fokus auf eine offene Familienwirtschaft ermöglicht es, diese flexiblen handwerklichen Ökonomien zu erfassen. Der Beitrag von Nicole Stadelmanns Buch zur deutschsprachigen Handwerksforschung liegt in der Zusammenführung der zünftigen und außerzünftigen Produktion. Indem dabei die Arbeit der Frauen in der Produktionssphäre sichtbar wird, leistet die Studie auch wichtige Erkenntnisse zur Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte.

This book presents a synthesis and analysis of the possessions of non-elite rural households in medieval England. Drawing on the results of the Leverhulme Trust funded project ‘Living Standards and Material Culture in English Rural Households, 1300-1600’, it represents the first national-scale interdisciplinary analysis of non-elite consumption in the later Middle Ages. The research is situated within debates around rising living standards in the period following the Black Death, the commercialisation of the English economy and the timing of a ‘revolution’ in consumer behaviour. Its novelty derives from its focus on non-elite rural households. Whilst there has been considerable work on the possessions of the great households and those living in larger towns, researchers have struggled to identify appropriate sources for understanding the possessions of those living in the countryside, even though they account for the majority of England’s population at this time. This book will address the gap in understanding. The study combines 3 sources of data to address 2 questions: what goods did medieval households own, and what influenced their consumption habits? The first is archaeological evidence, comprising 14,706 objects recovered from archaeological excavations. The book synthesises this data, much of which is unpublished and therefore inaccessible to researchers. The second dataset derives from lists of the seized goods of felons, outlaws and suicides collated by the Escheator, a royal official, in the 14th and 15th centuries. The work of the Escheator is not well understood, but these lists, relating to some of the poorest people in medieval society (for whom traditional sources such as wills and probate inventories do not exist), provide new insights into the living standards of rural households. The lists typically detail and value the possessions of a household, meaning that it is possible to present a quantitative analysis of non-elite consumption for the first time. The final dataset draws on equivalent lists generated by the Coroner for the 16th century. An interdisciplinary approach is essential, as many objects identified archaeologically do not occur in the written records, and goods such as textiles do not survive in the ground. Drawing these sources together therefore allows the presentation of a more comprehensive analysis of the possessions of medieval households. The introduction lays out the research context in a manner accessible to historians and archaeologists who may not be familiar with work in each other’s disciplines. This is followed by a brief summary of the research methodology and the sources underpinning the research. The next 5 chapters focus on addressing the question of what medieval households owned, discussing the evidence for kitchen equipment, tableware, furniture, clothing and personal items. The following 3 chapters discuss household economy, considering the evidence for the production of goods, variation in consumption between town and country and variation in accordance with wealth, firstly through the consideration of these themes at the national scale and secondly through a regional case study focussed on Wiltshire, which has particularly rich archaeological and documentary sources. The volume closes with a concluding chapter which places the research back into its wider context.

The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space. ; The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space.

Servants were for a long time the dominant form of labour in Sweden. To serve, at a farm or at a manor, was ever since the thirteenth century the most common way to make a living, since poor people could by law be forced to accept work for a master. Service hence replaced thraldom in Sweden. In From slaves to servants, historian Martin Andersson explains how the regulations of the servants’ lives were gradually sharpened. Labourers had to become servants under the threats of punishment and forced conscription into the army. Wages were legally reduced, while other forms of making a living were blocked. The master’s right to use physical violence was increased, while the servant’s duty to obey was expanded. By the end of the sixteenth century, most farmhands and maids worked at manors or for the richest of the peasantry. They had consequently minimal chances of themselves becoming masters. Through studies of a rich material of regional law codes, court records, fine registers, royal letters and manuals for manor owners, the historian paints a rich picture of the daily lives of servants – a life formed by legal uncertainty, coercion, and poverty.

This is the first Open Access book introducing more than 20 of Japan’s leading innovative entrepreneurs from the 17th century to the present. The author outlines the innovative business models created by entrepreneurs including SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, Fast Retailing (Uniqlo)’s Yanai Tadashi, Honda’s Soichiro Honda, Sony’s Akio Morita, Panasonic’s Konosuke Matsushita, and Toyota’s Kiichiro Toyoda, as well as their predecessors including Takatoshi Mitsui of Mitsui Zaibatsu, Shibusawa Eiichi of Daiichi Bank. While introducing the innovators, the author also raises three broader questions: 1. Why did Japan industrialize earlier than any other country outside Europe and the United States? 2. Why was Japan able to realize unsurpassed economic growth between the 1910s and the 1980s? 3. Why has Japan’s economy stagnated for more than 30 years since the 1990s? Drawing upon analytical concepts including Schumpeter’s breakthrough innovation, Kirzner’s incremental innovation, and Christensen’s disruptive innovation, the author contends that Japan’s successes were based on unique and systematic breakthrough innovation and an accumulation of incremental innovation, while it later fell victim to a combination of breakthrough innovation from advanced countries and disruptive innovation by developing nations.

Made in France examines the long history of the branding of the French nation, from the political imprint of Prime Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert to the present day. The politics of Made in France were articulated at several levels of power, which was centralised by the French state, but also exercised locally, as in Paris and in the wine producing regions. The French government has consistently fostered production that advertised its country-of-origin as a symbol of quality on domestic and international markets. This chapter discusses the luxury industries, especially haute couture. The experiences of this industry, and other luxury industries show that is possible to relocate production outside France, which has resulted in the massification of luxury-item production.

This open access book explores the history of pellagra, a vitamin deficiency disease brought about by a shift in agriculture to maize, and which was first identified in Italy in the 1760s. With a focus on the insanity that was caused by the disease, the authors examine how thousands of patients were treated in Italian psychiatric asylums, shedding light on the sufferer’s point of view. Setting pellagrous insanity in a wider context of man-made or societal (anthropogenic) disease, where poverty, diet and disease meet, the book contributes to the history of medicine and science, the history of psychiatry, economic and social history, agrarian history, and food and nutrition history. Additionally, the authors aim to transnationalise Italian history by making comparisons with related issues, such as tertiary syphilis in the UK. Drawing from a wide range of printed and archival sources, including the writings of Italian medical investigators, the book examines how medical and scientific research was carried out during the long nineteenth century and the uncertainties that this engendered, in terms of classification, explanation, diagnosis and treatment. Offering a unique perspective on an endemic illness which came to be known as the disease of the four ds: dermatitis; diarrhea; dementia; and death, this book provides an engaging account of one of the most perplexing causes of mental illness.

In kapitalistischen Gesellschaften ist die Bedrohung eines ökonomischen Scheiterns allgegenwärtig. Besondere Aufmerksamkeit von Historiker*innen verdient der spezifische soziale Umgang mit scheiternden Kredit- und Schuldbeziehungen. Eric Häusler nimmt sich in einer praxisorientierten Quellenanalyse fast 600 Berner Geldstagsrödel (Konkursakten) an. Er beschreibt über 150 Jahre hinweg die Alltäglichkeit des Scheiterns und interpretiert in interdisziplinärer Perspektive den Geldstag als Verfahren, das den bedrohten Haushalten immer auch Zukunftsperspektiven eröffnete. Dieses solidarische Konkursregime weicht deutlich vom Leitmotiv des herrschenden Konkursnarrativs - Nichts als Elend! - ab.

An Economic Philosophy of Production, Work and Consumption presents a new transhistorical framework of defining production, work and consumption. It shows that they all share the common feature of intentional physical transformation of something external to the agent, at some point in time. The book opens with a discussion of various theoretical traditions within economics, spanning mainstream and heterodox perspectives, and problems with production definitions in use today. Next, the author outlines various definitions in a more formal manner and provides a discussion on measurement and the production boundary. Unproductive work is redefined as socially reproductive, i.e. such that would not be performed on a Robinson Crusoe Island. Finally, the volume applies the new conceptual framework to various historical cases and discusses the future of production, work and consumption. This essential volume will be of interest to scholars of economic philosophy and methodology, the history of economic thought, economic history and national accounting.

digital labour; Globalisation; platform economy; platform economy

This open access book explores the history of risk management in medieval and early modern European maritime business, focusing particularly on 'General Average' – a mechanism by which extraordinary expenses regarding ship or cargo, incurred during a voyage to save the venture, are shared between all participants to protect equity. This volume traces the history of this risk management tool from its origins in the pre-Roman Mediterranean through to its use in the shipping sector today. Contributions range from the Islamic Mediterranean to the Low Countries, and taken together, provide a wide-ranging analysis of social, cultural, and political aspects of pre-modern maritime commerce in Europe.

This book traces the origins of a financial institution, the modern corporation, in Genoa and reconstructs its diffusion in England, the Netherlands, and France. At its inception, the Casa di San Giorgio (1407–1805) was entrusted with managing the public debt in Genoa. Over time, it took on powers we now ascribe to banks and states, accruing financial characteristics and fiscal, political, and territorial powers. As one of the earliest central banks, it ruled territories and local populations for almost a century. It controlled strategic Genoese possessions near and far, including the island of Corsica, the city of Famagusta (in Cyprus), and trading posts in Crimea, the Black Sea, the Lunigiana in northern Tuscany, and various towns in Liguria. In the early sixteenth century, in his Florentine Histories (Book VIII, Chapter 29), Niccolò Machiavelli was the first to analyze the relationship between the Casa di San Giorgio’s financial and territorial powers, declaring its possession of territories as the basis of its ascendancy. Later, the founders of some of the earliest corporations, including the Dutch East India Company (1602), the Bank of England (1694), and John Law’s Mississippi Company (1720) in France, referenced the model of the Casa di San Giorgio.

The modern global economy and discipline of economics place mathematical calculation above human concern. However, a re-reading of Boethius’ The Consolation of Philosophy can positively highlight the contrast in values and spirit of the early medieval European world with our own scientific age. This book discusses the historical and cultural contexts that influenced Boethius’ writing and explores how Consolation offers a radically different understanding of economic concepts: wealth from inner happiness and virtues, poverty from hoarding outer possessions, self-sufficiency in the greater whole, enlightenment through misfortune, and development as fruition from the Good. These economic considerations resonate with a range of heterodox economic perspectives, such as Ecological and Buddhist Economics. The fundamental revaluations gained through Boethius pose a critique of mainstream neoclassical and neoliberal economics: to consumerism, avarice, growth and technology fetishism, and market rationality. These economic foundations resonate into a time when global crises raise the question of fundamental human priorities, offering alternatives to an ever-expanding industrial market economy designed for profit, and helping to avoid irrevocable socio-ecological disasters. The issues raised and questioned in this book will be of significant interest to readers with concern for pluralist approaches to economics, philosophy, classics, ancient history and theology.

What does »creativity« mean in the context of IT and what happens when IT acts in its name? Jan Sebastian Zipp examines the concept of creativity in large IT companies in times of digital change, including new ways of working or potential artificial creativity with no human interaction. Drawing on constitutive elements like Silicon Valley or its connection to counterculture, his analysis of the representation and organisation of creativity as a social practice provides insights into the inherent logic of the creativity narrative of IT. This study contributes vital foundations for a critical engagement with today's prevailing understanding of the concept of creativity.

In The Currency of Empire, Jonathan Barth explores the intersection of money and power in the early years of North American history, and he shows how the control of money informed English imperial action overseas. The export-oriented mercantile economy promoted by the English Crown, Barth argues, directed the plan for colonization, the regulation of colonial commerce, and the politics of empire. The imperial project required an orderly flow of gold and silver, and thus England's colonial regime required stringent monetary regulation. As Barth shows, money was also a flash point for resistance; many colonists acutely resented their subordinate economic station, desiring for their local economies a robust, secure, and uniform money supply. This placed them immediately at odds with the mercantilist laws of the empire and precipitated an imperial crisis in the 1670s, a full century before the Declaration of Independence. The Currency of Empire examines what were a series of explosive political conflicts in the seventeenth century and demonstrates how the struggle over monetary policy prefigured the patriot reaction to the Stamp Act and so-called Intolerable Acts on the eve of American independence. Thanks to generous funding from the Arizona State University and George Mason University, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access (OA) volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other Open Access repositories.

What is development, what has it been in the past, and what can historians learn from studying the history of development? How has the field of the history of development evolved over time, and where should it be going in the future?

Brands, Historical, Perspective, National, Markets, Global

How did the Bank of England manage sterling crises? This book steps into the shoes of the Bank’s foreign exchange dealers to show how foreign exchange intervention worked in practice. The author reviews the history of sterling over half a century, using new archives, data and unseen photographs. This book traces the sterling crises from the end of the War to Black Wednesday in 1992. The resulting analysis shows that a secondary reserve currency such as sterling plays an important role in the stability of the international system. The author goes on to explore the lessons the Bretton Woods system on managed exchange rates has for contemporary policy makers in the context of Brexit. This is a crucial reference for scholars in economics and history examining past and current prospects for the international financial system.

En décembre 2020, les Suisses votaient sur l’initiative populaire « pour des multinationales responsables ». Cet épisode récent a rappelé que la régulation de l’activité des sociétés multinationales fait l’objet de luttes politiques, auxquelles participent les dirigeants d’entreprises et les associations patronales qui les représentent. Il était pertinent d’offrir un éclairage historique sur ces dynamiques en analysant la manière dont plusieurs grandes multinationales suisses et leur association d’intérêt, « Industrie-Holding », se sont engagées dans des activités politiques depuis la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale. L’ouvrage met en lumière les processus par lesquels les représentants de ces entreprises ont contribué à l’élaboration d’institutions et de règlements qui favorisent leurs affaires : accords de double imposition, garantie contre les risques à l’investissement, accords de protection des investissements, etc. Il étudie également la perception qu’ont eue d’autres groupes d’intérêt, notamment les syndicats et d’autres fractions du patronat, du phénomène d’internationalisation selon différents contextes économiques. Enfin, Sabine Pitteloud dévoile les stratégies des multinationales suisses lorsque le processus d’internationalisation est remis en cause dans les années 1970 et discute la résilience du capitalisme helvétique.