Cartels in 19th century Germany: On the economic analysis of (legal) cartels 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深，完成这项任务就越容易。然而，如今卡特尔大多是非法的，这使得人们很难观察和理解卡特尔。因此，经济研究对合法卡特尔产生了(日益增长的)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合法的历史时期越来越感兴趣。要为当前的反垄断讨论从历史卡特尔中获得洞察力，理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上的卡特尔。对于这样一个经济史研究项目，1914年之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年起就正式合法了--尽管公众对此仍有相当大的争论--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《卡特尔备忘录》(Denkschriftüber das Kartewesen)包括了这一时期德国大多数最重要的卡特尔的合同。根据这些历史文件(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。这些洞察力将被用来提高我们对卡特尔如何运作、如何以及何时创建卡特尔以及它们的影响的理解。该研究项目被嵌入到一个更大的关于竞争文化的研究计划中，该计划将促进与历史研究的跨学科交流，并确保对历史卡特尔的经济讨论将从历史的角度得到充分考虑。

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 Based on these historical documents (though not confined to it), the aim of the research project is to investigate the internal organizational structure of cartels, and the institutions they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.