Interlocking Directorates of Banks and Industrial Companies in Hungary at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century
The article uses new archival research on the Hungarian Commercial Bank of Pest and industrial companies to examine the validity of existing interpretations of interlocking directorates in Hungarian bank-industry relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. The results show that interlocking hardly depended on capital relations, which suggests that board membership had not only a control or monitoring function. The lack of regular capital relations made bank hegemony, or even a significant bank influence, not concomitant with interlocking. The Hungarian Commercial Bank was not always able to represent its own interests effectively, not even in those cases when beside the interlocks the bank was a significant owner or creditor of industrial companies. The article concludes that a more complex interpretation of interlocking directorships in Hungary is essential.
Interlocking Directorates in Spanish Banking in the Twentieth Century
Spanish banking historiography asserts that the largest banks performed in the twentieth century as though they constituted a monopoly. One of their main coordination schemes would have been a network of interlocking bank directors that would include most of the financial firms. Evidence available for the 1920s and 1960s seems to confirm the veracity of this hypothesis. In this paper, more systematic evidence is presented to cover the whole twentieth century with the aim of checking whether these networks persisted over the entire period or they were by-products of temporary situations. Our results show that no general network remained for more than a decade. Therefore, it should be ruled out that interlocking directorates worked as a coordination device of an alleged banking cartel.
The Determination of Physicochemical Characteristics of Biodiesel and Its Blending Oils
The viscosity,combustion heat,sulfur content,carbon residue,ash,flash point,moisture and cetane value of biodiesel and its blending oils with diesel were determined.The influence of temperature on the viscosity was studied,and the physicochemical characteristics of biodiesel and its blending oils were compared with diesel.The results indicated that biodiesel and its blending oils had some superior performances and good application prospect.