Jasper Kunstreich: “Bankruptcy Laws as Standortpolitik – The Case of Hamburg 1850 to 1870”, in: Dealing with Economic Failure. Between Norm and Pratice (15th to 21st Century), ed. by Albrecht Cordes and Margrit Schulte-Beerbühl (Frankfurt 2016), pp. 193-215.

 

The article explores the question whether local municipal bankruptcy statutes were used as economic incentives and “Standortpolitik” in the modern sense. The article is an in-depth case study of 19th century Hamburg – particularly the 1850s – and draws on new primary material from the Commerzbibliothek of the Hamburg Hanseatic Archive Foundation. It forms part of a new book Dealing with Economic Failure, edited by Albrecht Cordes and Margrit Schulte-Beerbühl and published at Peter Lang. The book is a collection of papers presented at an international conference on the same topic here in Frankfurt, at the Max-Planck Institute, in Spring 2014. All articles inquire how economic failures was perceived and embedded in historical normative contexts. The book chapters together span a period from the 15th to the 21st century.