The resilience management of individual entrepreneurs: The transalpine trade of David Gauger of Augsburg and David Wagner of Bolzano around 1600

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Mark Häberlein
• Subject Area: Economic and Social History
• Term: from 2017 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 398661773

In the final third of the sixteenth century a remarkable structuralchange occurred in the context of the commercialization process insouthern Germany: While numerous merchants went bankrupt oremigrated to European commercial centers and while members ofpatrician families withdrew from active trade, the commercialcompany, in which a group of (usually related) merchants pooled theircapital and labor, was largely replaced by individual entrepreneurs.The project aims to elucidate this little-studied transformation ofentrepreneurial forms by exploring the resilience management of twoindividual entrepreneurs who concentrated on transalpine trade andfor whom business ledgers and journals have survived. While DavidGauger of Augsburg specialized on the export of sheep wool fromcentral Germany to northern Italy (especially Bolzano and Bergamo),David Wagner, who had migrated from Augsburg to Tyrol, combinedseveral commercial and financial activities, and built up a far-flungtrade network south of the Alps. A detailed exploration of theirbusiness records seeks to clarify which specific resilience strategiesthese entrepreneurs employed, how they lowered transaction costsand in which ways they responded to disruptive external events. Inthis context questions related to the means of transportation, theemployment of commission agents, and access to forms of cashlesspayment will be studied.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants