In our days, German machine tool makers accuse their Chinese competitors of violating patent rights and illegally imitating German technology. A century ago, however, German machine tool makers used exactly the same methods to imitate American technology. To understand the dynamics of this...

This paper reviews the German miners' model of mutual insurance from its introduction in 1854 to its basic reformation in 1923. Its core feature was the provision of cash benefits for compensation of income losses due to temporary sickness and permanent invalidity or death of the bread-winner....

Was the 18th century a time period of gradual market integration? Or did the wars, famines, and criminality drive central European markets away from each other? We perform cointegration tests between four German and three Polish cities for rye markets in the 18th century, plus selected tests...