Vol. 67, No. 3

Yuichi TANJI
The marketing policy of Dai Nippon Brewery Co., 1906-1939

The Dai Nippon Brewery Co. was formed in 1906 through the merger of three companies, the Sapporo Beer Co., the Japan Beer Brewery Co. and the Osaka Beer Brewery Co. The company expanded and diversified after World War I and merged with the Nippon Beer Kosen Co. in 1933. These mergers resulted in a large-scale company which promoted the formation and expansion of a national special-contract sales network (tokuyaku hanbaimo) larger and more extensive than that of any other food producer. By giving various incentives to chain stores (tokuyakuten), the company was able to promote sales and achieve a high level of stability, with the exception of the period from 1927 to 1932.

The purpose of this article is to examine the marketing policies of the Dai Nippon Brewery Co. with particular reference to (1) the management of the company in the long period of continuous growth which preceded World War II, and (2) the role of the chain store system in the company's success.

Ayako ISHIZAKA
The postwar currency plan of the Reichsbank during the second World War: the development and failure of the clearing union scheme

This article deals with the activity of the Reichsbank in connection with postwar currency proposals. It tries to explain the discussion of the plans prepared by the Reichsbank, and the reason why in the end this discussion proved fruitless.

In the early stage of the war, at the height of German success, the Reichsbank denied that there was anything worth defending about a monetary regime based on gold and developed European schemes. Emil PUHL, the Reichsbank Vice-President, envisaged the European Clearing Union. It was intended that the European economy would be tied together through a multilateralized clearing in place of bilateral agreements.

However, the tide of the war turned, and it was clear that the postwar reordering would take place on the basis elaborated by the allies. The Reichsbank was much more interested in the Allied schemes for the postwar order. Per JACOBSSON, the chief economist of the Bank for International Settlements, was invited to Berlin in June 1943 to explain the currency plans of John M. KEYNES and Harry D. WHITE. PUHL preferred Keynes' plan to the White plan, because he recognized elements of the Reichsbank's plan in Keynes' plan for an International Clearing Union.

The longer the war went on, the more illusory a clearing union became. It soon grew obvious that there was no possibility of implementing the plan. The large German clearing deficits formed an obstacle to the realization of the clearing union.

Yoshitomo OKUNO
The local industrialization of eighteenth century Catalonia: industrial district formation and sector conversion

This paper analyzes why Catalonia was the only region of Spain to achieve a standard of industrialization that was able to stand comparison with advanced regions in the rest of Europe.

In eighteenth century Catalonia, there was a concentration of small wool industry centres in the mid-north. This concentration was brought about by such factors as viticultural specialization in the southeast, and by the land system and the craft guilds in the mid-north. The resulting possibility of economizing through agglomeration gave Catalan clothiers a competitive advantage over other parts of Spain, and the mid-north of the region became an active proto-industrial district. Meanwhile, the beginning of the eighteenth century had seen the birth of the calico printing industry in the Catalan capital, Barcelona, as a result of the sort of "product innovation" found in other advanced European regions. In the 1780s, this new industry came to need locally produced cotton- spun yarn and cotton cloth. As a result, wool industry centres began to convert to cotton, again using the advantages of agglomeration. This connection between a rural proto-industrial district and an urban-based new industry strengthened and enlarged Catalonia's industrial base, turning it into a "fabrique collective".