Volume 62, Issue 2

Abstract: The scientific enterprise. Chemical-pharmaceutical research at E. Merck, Darmstadt, ca. 1900 to 1930 This article deals with the development of academic research within the pharmaceutical firm E. Merck, Darmstadt, between 1900 and 1930. One main purpose is to clarify to what extent the widespread notion is justified that external research gave way for internal research in order to maintain a leading position in innovativeness. Therefore the article analyses the way of co-operation between Merck and Richard Willstätter in the case of cocaine-synthesis around 1900, and the co-operation with Adolf Windaus with regard to vitamin D during the 1920s. The article concludes that internal research was indeed intensified during the interwar period, on the one hand. But this development is, on the other hand, better understood as a necessary precondition if the firm wanted prospectively be able to participate at novel developments in vitamin chemistry. The co-operation between the chemical laboratory of the university of Goettingen, the Merck research laboratory, and the pharmaceutical laboratory of I.G. Farbenindustrie AG are more aptly interpreted as an interconnected research network in which each part contributed original insights and, occasionally, breakthroughs.

Abstract: This paper contributes to the literature on the organisation and governance of stock exchanges by taking the perspective of property rights theory. Focusing on the examples of the London and Berlin stock exchanges, which followed quite opposite paths of development during the second half of the 19 th century, the paper provides three major results. First, it shows that historical stock exchanges were much more characterised by institutional variety and evolution than recent economic accounts tend to suggest. Secondly, drawing on a theoretical model developed by Oliver Hart and John Moore, the paper argues that differences in membership structure as well as in the competitive environment constituted the main driving forces behind organisational change both in London and in Berlin. Finally, it is claimed that future research should take the public dimension of Continental bourses more strongly into account, which, for example, has important implications for the question of whether stock exchanges established property rights in prices or not.

Abstract: Conventions of Occupational Integration. The Employment of Disabled People in Swiss Enterprises (1950 to 1980) Disabled people's access to the labour market is one of the leading ideas in disability policy. Its success depends on the willingness of employers to employ handicapped people. Both historical and social studies focus on the welfare state or the people in question, while the perspective of the employers is often neglected. Under what conditions are companies willing to employ people whose performance diverges from the common interest to maximise economic output? Switzerland is well suited for a case study, since there are no regulations for employers, such as a quota-system. Incorporating the theory of «économie des conventions», this study investigates how employers' associations and companies justify employment of disabled people and how these people are valued. The timeframe investigated spans from the immediate post-war period to 1980.

Abstract: During the first half of the nineteenth century, the French economy underwent a major technological change, with small and medium-scale entrepreneurs driving the industrialisation by developing and exploiting new technologies. This paper examines the life of one such entrepreneur, Hector Ledru (ca. 1798 to 1876), who started out in the sugar industry of the post Napoleonic era. He soon morphed into an entrepreneur exploiting patents in the manufacture of wooden barrel manufacture, galvanised iron and metal pipes, before he settled on the manufacture and installation of central heating systems. Ledru serves as an example of the archetypical small and later medium-scale entrepreneur making his way in post Napoleonic France, never reaching national fame, but all the way adjusting to the various social and economic circumstances.