Making profits in wartime

Corporate profits, inequality, and GDP in Germany during the First World War1

Bibliographic Data

ID4804488
AuthorsJoerg Baten (0000-0001-5029-501X, University of Tübingen), Rainer Schulz (0009-0000-5741-9070, University of Tübingen)
Year2005
Volume58
Issue1
Pages34-56
Publication date2005-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.2005.00297.x
OpenAlexW1990316878
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited8

Making profits in wartime: corporate profits, inequality, and GDP in Germany during the First World War. This article reconsiders, and rejects, Kocka's (1973) hypothesis that a strong income redistribution from workers to capital owners occurred in Germany during the First World War. A small number of firms profited from the war, but the majority experienced a decline in real income, similar to the decline in workers' real wages. This finding also has important implications for the political history of the Weimar Republic. The authors also use their figures to improve German GDP estimates for the war period, since their sample makes it possible to estimate private service sector development. Economic indicators were worse for the war year of 1917 than previously believed

Capital (architecture) · Development economics · Economic history · Economic inequality · Economics · Economy · First world war · Geography · German · Inequality · Interwar period · Labour economics · Political science · Politics · Redistribution (election) · Weimar Republic · World War II · Historical Economic and Social Studies · History · Italy: Economic History and Contemporary Issues · Law