Cartels in 19th century Germany: On the economic analysis of (legal) cartels in historical perspective

19世纪德国的卡特尔：从历史角度对（合法）卡特尔进行经济分析

• 批准号: 281766073
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Felix Höffler (†)
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Seminar für Wirtschaftliche Staatswissenschaften
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2015-12-31 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/281766073?language=en
• 关键词: Cartels; 19th; century; Germany; economic

One of the main tasks of competition policy is to counteract collusive agreements. The better our understanding of cartels, the easier it will be to accomplish this task. However, the fact that nowadays cartels are mostly illegal makes it hard to observe and understand cartels. Therefore, economic research has developed an (increasing) interest in legal cartels. Since contemporary cartels are usually illegal, this implies an increasing interest in historical periods in which cartels were legal. To create insights from historical cartels for the current antitrust discussions, it is crucial to understand the historical context of these cartels. At the same time, modern economic analysis can contribute to the understanding of historical cartels. For such an economic history research project, the German cartels before 1914 offer ample and rich material. Since cartels were officially legal at least since 1897 - though there still was considerable public debate about them - cartels, their behavior and even their contracts are often well documented for this period. In particular, the Denkschrift über das Kartellwesen (Memorandum on cartels) of 1905 includes the contracts of the majority of the most important cartels in Germany for this period. Based on these historical documents (though not confined to it), the aim of the research project is to investigate the internal organizational structure of cartels, and the institutions they created. These insight will be used to improve our understanding of how cartels work, how and when they are created, and what their impact is. The research project is embedded in a larger research program on Konkurrenzkulturen (Cultures of competition), which will facilitate interdisciplinary exchange with historical research and ensure that the economic discussion of historical cartels will be adequately put in historical perspective.

竞争政策的主要任务之一是抵制串通协议。我们对卡特尔的了解越多，就越容易完成这项任务。然而，如今卡特尔大多数是非法的，这一事实使人们难以观察和理解卡特尔。因此，经济研究对法律的卡特尔产生了（越来越大的）兴趣。由于当代卡特尔通常是非法的，这意味着人们对卡特尔是法律的的历史时期越来越感兴趣。为了从历史卡特尔中为当前的反垄断讨论提供见解，了解这些卡特尔的历史背景至关重要。与此同时，现代经济分析有助于理解历史卡特尔。对于这样一个经济史研究项目来说，1914年以前的德国卡特尔提供了充足而丰富的材料。由于卡特尔至少从1897年起就正式法律的了--尽管公众对卡特尔仍有相当多的争论--卡特尔、他们的行为甚至他们的合同在这一时期往往都有很好的记录。特别是，1905年的《关于卡特尔的备忘录》包括了这一时期德国大多数最重要的卡特尔的合同。根据这些历史文献（但不限于此），研究项目的目的是调查卡特尔的内部组织结构及其创建的机构。这些见解将用于提高我们对卡特尔如何运作，如何以及何时创建以及其影响的理解。该研究项目是嵌入在一个更大的研究计划Konkurrenzkulturen（竞争文化），这将促进跨学科的交流与历史研究，并确保历史卡特尔的经济讨论将充分放在历史的角度。