The working paper contains data on the Top 100 British and German firms measured by employment in five different years. Our analysis and interpretation of the tables has been published in the journal Jahrbuch fuer Wirtschaftsgeschichte 2/2010, pp. 27-43: ?Big Business im 20. Jahrhundert: Die 100...

This paper compares the industrial development of the two leading British and German woollen cloth regions in the late 18th and the beginning of the 19th century. It focuses on the implementation of the industrial capitalism?s paradigmatic new system of production, the factory system. At the...

The paper deals with the development of big business in Germany during the 20th century. It shows the first results of the German team of the research project ?The Performance of European Business in the 20th Century?. The paper analyses how the structure of big business changed: it shows the...

In late 18th century Prussia, the conditions were laied down that were to form the basis of the economic upturn of the 19th century. This period of transition was marked by a break with the former ?mercantilist? or ?camerialist? system as it is termed in its specific German form of promotion of...

We investigate a sample of 180 technology licensing contracts closed by German chemical, pharmaceutical, and electrical engineering companies between 1880 and 1913. Our empirical results suggest that strategic behaviour seems to be relevant for the design of licensing contracts, whereas inventor...

This study of initial public offerings (IPOs) carried out on the Berlin and London stock exchanges between 1900 and 1913 casts doubt on the received �law and finance� wisdom that legally mandated investor protection is pivotal to the development of capital markets. IPOs that resulted...