Practices of Comparing in Sellers’ Markets and in Target Marketing: The American and German Automobile Industries in the 20th Century (F03 [A02])

这个子项目(A02的续篇)正在调查1900年以来作为资本主义在爆炸性汽车市场中竞争的核心要素的比较的做法。在这一阶段的研究中，该项目不会只关注汽车制造中的公司，这些公司的比较邀请是针对国家和工业客户的。相反，个人消费者获得了特权地位。此外，机构代理人进入阶段，他们将专业比较作为一种自己的商业模式。这将表明，作为市场服务的提供者，它们在实际构成汽车市场方面发挥了重要作用。

This subproject (in continuation of A02) is investigating practices of comparing as a central element of capitalist competition in the exploding automobile market since 1900. In this phase of research, the project will not focus exclusively on corporations in automobile manufacturing whose invitations to compare in a specific way were addressed to the state and industrial clients alike. Instead, the individual consumer acquires a privileged position. Furthermore, institutional agents enter the stage who make professional comparing a business model of its own. It will be shown that they, as providers of market services, have been instrumental in actually constituting markets for automobiles proper.