Papers presented by Valeria Giacomin since 2019

2024 Providence, Rhode Island

"Financial Insights about East Sumatran Plantations in Early 1900s Rubber Bubble"

Abstract:

In the early 20th century, East Sumatra became a hub for plantation companies focusing on rubber plantations. Buoyed by the success of the cultivation of Hevea rubber variety domesticated from Brazil in neighboring Malaya, and the surging global demand for this commodity, several new estate ventures secured capital from European investors through listing in stock exchanges in London and Amsterdam. While there is extensive research on the rubber industry and its financing in Southeast Asia, there is no systematic study focusing on the companies introducing rubber in East Sumatra and their financial performance vis à vis the industry in the midst of the first rubber boom between 1905 and 1911. Our research aims to fill this gap by reconstructing the corporate landscape of estate companies operating rubber plantations in this region during the first decade of the 20th century. It explores their financial performance in relation to the speculative bubble that emerged since the mid-1900s. Our central research question is whether these companies prioritized long-term investment over speculative gains, in the framework of an academic debate that spurred in the 1970s. We employ a mixed methods approach, combining quantitative analysis of acreage, capitalization, and rubber prices with a qualitative examination of the directors and agents involved in the listing of these companies. The analysis is based on a comprehensive database compiled with data from the London Stock Exchange and Amsterdam Stock Exchange available at Guildhall Library in London, the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam and the Graduate Institute in Geneva, in triangulation with data from the Investors Monthly Manual of the London Stock Exchange digitized by the Yale School of Management. We also use historical records from the Singapore & Straits Directory and the regional newspaper the Straits Times; business and corporate records held at London Metropolitan Archives; and publicly available material from British and Dutch national archives.

Keywords:

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"The rise of the mutual fund global city network in the post war period (1945-1989)"

Abstract:

As of December 2021, the value of the worldwide aggregate net assets of open-end funds amounted to USD 71 trillion, with the United States and Luxembourg as respectively the first and second larger issuers. This article concentrates on the origins of this industry in Europe and how mutual funds came to rely on a global city network centering on financial hubs such as Luxemburg and Belgium since the dawn of the second globalization. While a fund market progressively developed in Europe since the end of WWII, it then gradually re-shaped its organization in the next three decades by introducing new financial products and by forging stronger or new relationships with several international financial hubs. In this context, by the end of the 1980s, Luxemburg established itself as one of the most competitive platforms for investment funds in Europe. It achieved this position thanks to its long-term liberal approach to fiscal legislation of financial vehicles, and the international vocation of the city’s financial intermediaries. By using a body of Luxemburg’s auditing and banking data, and archival sources such as the Banque Lambert at the Belgian National Archives, this article reconstructs the emergence of a network of International Financial Centers (IFCs) and global cities involved in sales-purchases flows of funds’ shares between 1945 and 1989. It also focuses on the analysis of the emergence of tax avoidance linkages between the European fund market and a network of growing international Offshore Financial Centers (OFCs) such as Panama, Bahamas, and the Netherlands Antilles. So far, most studies in financial and business history concentrate on the history of individual funds or on the analysis of early mutual funds’ industries as they developed in the US and in the UK. This research, by using Luxembourg’s as a case study, applies instead a global perspective by investigating the understudied international ties between the rapidly growing European fund market and a global network of IFCs in the decades preceding the take-off of the second globalization.

Keywords:

2023 Detroit, MI, United States

"Environmentalism and Sustainability in the Southeast Asian Plantation Industry (1930s-2000s)"

Abstract:

The paper discusses the long-term environmental and social damage created by the expansion of plantation agriculture (palm oil and rubber) in Southeast Asia (Malaysia and Indonesia) and the responses that it triggered locally and internationally. It starts with a summary and discussion of labor and land exploitation during colonialism. It analyses the impact of the expansion of smallholding since the 1930s, which started as a potentially more sustainable alternative to plantation but emerged as equally damaging to the local environment during the post-war period. It concludes by investigating the period between the late 1990s and the early 2000s when the plantation industry, specifically palm oil producers, became a significant target of environmental campaigns against massive deforestation. Under the pressure of Western buyers, the industry decided to transform the value chain by introducing sustainability standards and a certification system. As a result, land in the region became a space of negotiation between conflicting interests. On one side, local governments, companies, and smallholders prioritized their right to develop their economy by utilizing their national resources. On the other, environmentalists considered the tropical forest and plantations a common good to safeguard for the sake of the world's present and future generations. These actors grew increasingly influential, leveraging their superior skills in international negotiation and the use of social media for global communication, responsible capitalism, and lobbying. Unlike their Southeast Asian counterparts, they framed their narratives by projecting a clear idea of "the geography of the future" requiring "responsible policies" to preserve biodiversity and fight climate change, which affected the demand for Southeast Asian crops and their global competitive positions.

Keywords:

2022 Mexico City

"The rise of Milan as a global fashion hub: a demand-driven theory of agglomeration (1960-1980)"

Abstract:

We investigate how Milan emerged as the Italian fashion hub by the early 1980s, even though the context favored competitive cities such as Florence, Turin, and Rome. Existing theories of industry hub emergence, such as Marshallian agglomeration, Klepperian spinoffs, institutional intervention, early technological advantage, or focus on complementing existing hubs, so far did not explain Milan's rise. We argue that Milan responded to unsatisfied demands, unlike hubs such as Detroit, Silicon Valley etc., where organizations created the demand, often through innovative technologies. Thus, we complement existing theories focusing on supply-side dynamics to propose a theory of industry hub emergence based on demand-side dynamics. We suggest that Milan became a fashion capital due to fundamental shifts in demand that were subsequently satisfied by innovative organizational structures. We show that the elevation of Milan to a hub is an outcome of the ability of local firms to match the changing fashion needs. Evidence from articles in leading Italian fashion magazines indicates that after World War II, the increasingly professionally employed population demanded stylish, high-quality clothes that were affordable. Traditional Italian firms failed to satisfy this growing demand focusing on traditional expensive haute-couture (Rome, Florence), or on mass-produced textiles competing on low prices (Turin). Instead, Milanese firms followed the demand and created the ready-to-wear "Pret-a-porter" that fell in the mid-price segment. We offer evidence that Milanese firms could create this segment because of their innovative organizational structures that gave prominence to the designers instead of the manufacturers, a revolutionary change at the at the time. Archival sources suggest that Milanese firms' structural innovation enabled them to give the city a celebrity status by creating a positive emotional response that affected stakeholder choices.

Keywords:

2022 Mexico City

"Spiritual Philanthropy in Emerging Markets"

Abstract:

This working paper discusses the ethics and drivers of philanthropic foundations in emerging markets. A foundation organizes assets to invest in philanthropic initiatives. Previous scholarship has largely focused on developed countries, especially the United States, and has questioned the ethics behind the activities of foundations, particularly for strategic motives that served wider corporate purposes. We argue that philanthropic foundations in emerging markets have distinctive characteristics that merit separate examination. We scrutinize the ethics behind the longitudinal activity of such foundations using 70 oral history interviews with business leaders in 18 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. We find that 55 out of 70 foundations associated with these leaders were used as vehicles for a specific type of philanthropic ethics that we define as “spiritual philanthropy.” These foundations often embodied inherited personal or family traditions, culture and religious values, which emphasized charitable giving and social responsibility. As in the case of many of the industrial foundations in Europe, these foundations also carried founding family names providing a structure to maintain family control and enhance corporate reputation. We argue that, as business leaders in emerging markets are more directly exposed to dire social, educational and health deprivation than their counterparts in developed countries, they are less inclined towards grandiose world-making, and their foundations are more focused on delivering immediate benefits to communities in their home countries, motivated by implicit or explicit spirituality.

Keywords:

2020 Charlotte, North Carolina

"Contested Femininity and Entrepreneurial Imagination: Ruth Handler"

Abstract:

Business historians have widely discussed female entrepreneurship and the role of gender in the evolution of capitalism. However, few contributions have so far directly connected this rich scholarship with mainstream entrepreneurship research. In this paper, we analyze the case of the serial entrepreneur Ruth Handler to criticize and expand Tina Seelig (2015)’s Invention Cycle, an entrepreneurship framework coming out of the Stanford Design Thinking tradition. We use archival material from Handler’s personal collection at the Schlesinger Library to study the progression of Handler’s entrepreneurial process and her experience of engaging with gender and femininity in her ventures. Ruth Handler founded the toy company Mattel with her husband Elliot, and together they transformed it into a global multinational after launching the iconic doll Barbie through the 1960s. In the 1970s, she faced a period of crisis, undergoing a mastectomy to cure her breast cancer and a white-collar scandal that forced her and Elliot out of Mattel. At age 50, she managed to rehabilitate her image, by reinventing herself in a new venture, Nearly Me, supplying prostheses to breast cancer survivors. Based on the empirical analysis, we develop a more historical and gendered perspective of Seelig’s framework, which we criticize as decontextualized and void of historical sensitivity. Moreover, the analysis stresses how different perspectives on femininity shaped and influences the entrepreneur’s self-understanding and her entrepreneurial journey. Handler’s ability to collaborate helped revolutionize the toy-making and breast-prosthesis industries, creating products tailored to women’s and girls’ needs. Yet, her story also shows the complexity of being a woman executive, as well as “selling femininity” through her products. Despite her success, the ventures demonstrated that femininity was often contested, and required constant reinvention to match women’s changing role in society.

Keywords: