No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The existing research on the first merger waves in the United States, Britain, and to a lesser extent in Germany, has produced valuable information on the rise of the modern industrial enterprise. These studies reveal important similarities as well as a few significant differences in the nature of the economic development of these nations. A new merger series for Canadian manufacturing industry was generated to provide a further comparison. In addition, a large pool of information was gathered concerning the workings of promotional syndicates, corporate flotations, and secondary financial markets. This aggregate data, in conjunction with a case study of the most prominent Canadian promoter of the era and the companies he consolidated, is used to determine the relationship between security financing and the evolution of manufacturing industry in Canada. An explanation of the cause of the first Canadian merger wave, 1909-1912, is based on individual case evidence and the results of causality tests using aggregate data. The necessary pre-condition to a merger wave was the emergence of a broad market for Canadian industrial securities. Although high stock prices stimulated merger waves in Britain and the United States at the turn of the century, the first Canadian merger wave had to wait another decade until the expansion of the Canadian market and the tapping of the British market for Canadian "industrials" permitted large-scale flotations. The potential profits which were available through corporate reorganisation, rationalisation of manufacturing and distribution networks, and monopolisation, were reflected in the higher rates of return which British investors sought en masse in the new Canadian securities. This flood of British capital in turn accelerated the industrial transformation taking place in Canada and encouraged further mergers. High stock prices triggered the first merger movement as they had in Britain and the United States. Corporate financiers became merger promoters as they catapulted propositions into consolidations large enough to be listed on public stock exchanges and to be of interest to prospective investors. High-risk financial methods provided the incentive to financial intermediaries to broaden this market as quickly as possible and, therefore, to deliver the maximum amount of cash to the new industrial consolidations.

This thesis examines seringais (rubber estates) on the Brazilian Amazon from the perspective of capitalist social relations of production in the period from the 1870 to 1930. It is divided into four parts. The first part introduces the subject. The second part considers the social relations of land property and the selective way of privatising land to argue that seringal is private property and that there was a free labour market. The third part discusses the engagement and the forms of controlling and disciplining labour. The fourth part focuses on profitability and capital accumulation by demonstrating that (a) the local investors had their own project of economic political changes, (b) this and a converging view on the use of natural resources constitute decisive elements in their decisions of re-investments. Rubber enterprises were usually run as partnerships and they invested mainly in the production of the Fina Hard Para kind, which was considered the best quality and commanded the highest price at that time, and in the diversification of economic activities. As this thesis demonstrates, the social relations of production in seringal are capitalist due to the following features: (a) they are organised to produce commodities for profit in order to ensure capital accumulation; (b) they are characterised by the command of capitalists over subordinated forms of free labour; (c) this command is based on the private ownership of the main means of rubber production. The specific features of the relations of production in seringais are basically twofold: (a) the employment of different forms of subordinate free labour, including waged and salaried, in which seringueiros (rubber tappers paid by results instead of by work time) were predominant and (b) the geomercantile privatisation and use of natural resources, involving a converging interaction with nature.

This thesis examines the political economy of the initial development of the Argentine iron and steel industry between circa 1920 and 1952. It analyses the reasons for the failure of those initiatives and shows that the main impetus to establish the industry was provided by the Second World War, not the Great Depression. The thesis accounts for the adverse impact of domestic factors such as the predominance of military strategic demands over business considerations, inadequate national supplies of raw materials, output bottlenecks, demand constraints and the politics of the period which frustrated policy continuity. The unfavourable effects of the international conjuncture are also assessed. These include the role of the International Steel Cartel in inhibiting the growth of domestic iron and steel production through a web of controls prior to 1939, and wartime constraints and the US embargo which limited access to essential capital goods and technology thereby frustrating positive incentives for the development of heavy industry. For most of the period, Argentina was one of the few 'open' markets for iron and steel products. The depth of the market and its ability to sustain domestic production is assessed through three case-product studies: rails, construction materials and rural implements. The research shows that demand was associated with traditional economic sectors. Organisational structures also frustrated development. The thesis proves that the history of the sector was characterised by organisational instability: a small number of ephemeral firms specialised in the production of a small number of items. Attempts to foster efficiency through large-scale integrated industrialisation involving State and private capital in a mixed corporation failed because the project was tailored to security rather than market requirements.

The construction of the first transcontinental railroad is a key event in the westward expansion of the rail network and the US economy. The railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 with large federal government subsidies. The standard view is that the railroad was not expected to be profitable (built ahead of demand) but turned out to be profitable (built after demand). The thesis develops a novel approach to evaluate whether the first transcontinental railroad was expected to be profitable. The approach emphasises on using information generated during the ex-ante period and comparing it to ex-post information. The ex-ante information comes from two different sources. First, reports written by entrepreneurs (and overlooked by previous literature) are used to identify entrepreneurs' declared expectations. Second, since such expectations could be different from entrepreneurs' true beliefs, an empirical entry decision model is used to evaluate the plausibility of declared expectations - simulated expectations. The ex-post information was revealed by the operation of the railroad, once built. The three sets of information (entrepreneur's declared expectations, simulated expectations, and observed performance) are compared to identify unforeseen events that may have affected profitability. The evidence indicates the railroad was expected to be profitable, and thus it was both ex-ante and ex-post built after demand. Subsidies may have still helped to promote construction during the Civil War.

No description available.