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The study of cartels is important to economists as well as business historians, but, on the whole, there has been little cross cultivation between the two academic fields. This article examines cartel theory developed by economists in the context of the historical case of international aluminum cartels in existence before 1940. By analyzing three basic theoretical questions—when cartels appear, when they break down, and when they are successful—in light of the empirical evidence of the aluminum industry, the article argues that economics and history, although they have very different approaches, can profit from using each other's methods when studying cartels.

The current literature on international joint ventures pays considerable attention to why joint ventures are established or why they are dissolved, but we lack studies that give insight into their dynamic development. The aim of this article is to investigate the evolution of an international joint venture over time. We confront some of the theoretical insights developed during the last decades with the dramatic history of the aluminum producer Det Norske Nitridaktieselskap (DNN). The company was established shortly beforeWorld War I and was finally disbanded over seventy years later. For most of this time, DNN was an international joint venture with shifting ownership configurations. This gives us the possibility not only to discuss the motivation for why the company was established or why it was dissolved, but also to study the mid-life of the company. What was DNN's role within the general corporate strategies of the owners? Did this role change over time?

This article investigates the development of the Spanish–Italian mercury cartel from the end of World War II to the mid-1950s. Previous literature has singled out the cartel as one of the most robust international cartels of the twentieth century, but as this article shows, the cartel broke down toward the end of the 1940s, and although briefly reestablished in 1954, it quickly dissolved again. Building on access to original source material from archives in Spain, Italy, the United States, and United Kingdom, we investigate the underlying reasons why the cartel broke down, and how and why it was eventually reestablished. Because both the main Italian and the Spanish mercury producers were state-owned, this article pays special attention to the influence of the political relations between Spain and Italy on the development of the cartel. The study of the mercury cartel is used as a prism to investigate the point where industry strategies meet government strategies. This article thus contributes to two major strands of literature, both to the business history literature on international cartels in the post-1945 world and to the diplomatic history literature on the intricate relationship between Spain and Italy in the early phase of the Cold War.

This article focuses on the expansion of the international oil majors into Scandinavia in the period before World War II. From 1890, Standard Oil dominated the Scandinavian markets, but gradually the company's hold on these markets was challenged by competitors. The article discusses how Standard oil achieved its market power in Scandinavia, and how the relationship between the company and its competitors, customers, and other stakeholders developed from 1890 to 1939. It also analyses how the Scandinavian governments reacted to the role of international cartels and the domination of large foreign multinationals in a sector that quickly was becoming more and more central to their economic development. The development of the Scandinavian oil markets is a prominent example of how big business actively worked to create uncompetitive markets by exploiting access to capital and control over the value chains. Gradually, this provoked public concern, yet finding the proper way to respond to the market power and the cartel and intra-firm co-operative practices of the mighty oil industry was no easy matter for the governments of small(ish) countries. By provoking public debate, the large oil companies' quest for non-competitive markets proved a powerful incitement towards demonstrating the need for competition laws. ; publishedVersion ; © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

In 1930, Unilever tried to take control of Lilleborg, Norway's most important producer of soap and vegetable oil, with the aim of wiping out most of Norway's independent margarine and soap industry. However, as the purchase was dependent on government concession, Unilever became embroiled in a power struggle with the Norwegian political authorities. The company was strongly criticized by Norwegian nationalists. The question of whether or not to let Unilever go forward became one of the most contested questions in Norwegian politics in the period. In the end, Unilever was allowed to go ahead with the purchase, but in return the company was forced to make substantial concessions. Expanding on Jones's framework for understanding the balance of power between multinationals and host governments, in this article it is argued that we must look beyond firm specific assets and a cost‐benefit oriented analysis of the relationship between multinationals and host countries to understand the end result. In this case, nationalism had a decisive impact. Unilever's acquisition of Lilleborg and the Norwegian response thus contributes to our understanding of the nature of multinational enterprise in the interwar period and of the political economy of foreign direct investment in general.

"For most of the twentieth century tin was fundamental for both warfare and welfare. The importance of tin is most powerfully represented by the tin can - an invention which created a revolution in food preservation and helped feed both the armies of the great powers and the masses of the new urban society. The trouble with tin was that economically viable deposits of the metal could only be found in a few regions of the world, predominantly in the southern hemisphere, while the main centers of consumption were in the industrialized north. The tin trade was therefore a highly politically charged economy in which states and private enterprise competed and cooperated to assert control over deposits, smelters and markets. Tin provides a particularly telling illustration of how the interactions of business and governments shape the evolution of the global economic trade; the tin industry has experienced extensive state intervention during times of war, encompasses intense competition and cartelization, and has seen industry centers both thrive and fail in the wake of decolonization. The history of the international tin industry reveals the complex interactions and interdependencies between local actors and international networks, decolonization and globalization, as well as government foreign policies and entrepreneurial tactics. By highlighting the global struggles for control and the constantly shifting economic, geographical and political constellations within one specific industry, this collection of essays brings the state back into business history, and the firm into the history of international relations"--

For most of the twentieth century tin was fundamental for both warfare and welfare. The importance of tin is most powerfully represented by the tin can - an invention which created a revolution in food preservation and helped feed both the armies of the great powers and the masses of the new urban society. The trouble with tin was that economically viable deposits of the metal could only be found in a few regions of the world, predominantly in the southern hemisphere, while the main centers of consumption were in the industrialized north. The tin trade was therefore a highly politically charge.

"...explores the often overlooked history of bauxite in the twentieth century, and in doing so examines the social, political, and economic forces that shaped the time."--back cover