The archive.

A company can pay dividends while its shareholders lose money. This discrepancy drives Felix Somary’s 1902 investigation of Austrian joint-stock enterprise: steam mills, for example, distributed dividends even as accumulated losses outweighed shareholder gains. Drawing on balance sheets, questionnaires, and liquidation records, Somary reconstructs returns for 1878–1899 rather than accepting published profits at face value. Reserves, capital reductions, and failed companies enter his reckoning; returns on original investment remain distinct from yields at market prices. His method gives concrete substance to a broader question: where does the joint-stock form work well, and where do apparently respectable payouts conceal weakness? Readers can discover how accounting choices alter judgments of corporate success—and why Somary’s generally favorable assessment of Austrian joint-stock enterprise coexists with sharp criticism of particular industries.

Counting farms and factories does not necessarily reveal who controls them. In this survey of the United States through its twelfth census, Felix Somary joins an explanation of economic expansion to a critique of its statistical record. Separately operated farms may share a landlord; nominally independent businesses may depend on larger enterprises for supplies, prices, and sales. Such distinctions sharpen his account of a country transformed by immigration, mechanization, and an integrated continental market. Writing from an Austrian perspective, Somary welcomes the opportunities America offers emigrants while questioning inflated corporate capitalization and misleading measures of independence. First published in 1903 and presented here in its [1904] offprint, the work shows how census categories can illuminate productive growth yet obscure the concentration of economic power.

An insurance contribution affordable to industry as a whole may still alter competition between firms. This tension drives Felix Somary’s 1906 article on Austria’s proposed old-age and invalidity insurance. Using German company accounts as a benchmark, he distinguishes modest aggregate costs from the heavier relative burden on smaller, less profitable, or labor-intensive enterprises. His statistical approach also exposes the limits of its evidence: inconsistent reporting narrows the sample, while balance sheets cannot show who ultimately bears the expense. Somary expects little reduction in aggregate profits but argues that reform could accelerate industrial concentration in Austria. The article offers a concrete way to examine how social insurance can be economically manageable overall yet consequential for particular firms, especially when profits fall.

A corporate survey can count companies accurately and still misrepresent a depression. In this 1906 review of Prussia’s joint-stock company statistics for 1899 and 1902, Felix Somary asks what official figures actually measure when they equate dividends with profits and leave bankruptcy losses out of account. His criticism is concrete: such choices make depressed conditions look healthier and blur the contrast with prosperity. Yet he also finds evidence worth interpreting, distinguishing capital growth from mere incorporation and ordinary borrowing from dangerous indebtedness. The review offers a compact encounter with Somary’s economic judgement: neither company counts nor debt ratios explain much without attention to industrial conditions, financing structures, and failed enterprises. His qualified appreciation of the survey shows how statistical usefulness can coexist with serious methodological defects.

Should public fire insurance be judged by objections to state enterprise or by how insurers actually operate? In this brief 1906 review, Felix Somary praises Alglave’s comparative evidence and attacks French liberal economists for neglecting it. A telling distinction anchors the discussion: Alglave favours compulsory insurance for buildings, linked to building regulation, but voluntary coverage for movable property, where valuation and concentrated urban risks complicate provision. Somary’s accompanying assessment of German insurance-law debates reveals a related concern: specialized legal differences should not obscure the common basis of insurance contracts or displace economic analysis. The review offers a compact encounter with Somary’s critical priorities—administrative costs, institutional comparison, and the practical relevance of foreign experience to Austrian reform.

Diligently collected statutes do not, for Felix Somary, amount to legal scholarship. His brief 1906 review of Derblich’s Das österreichische Versicherungsrecht acknowledges the scarcity of earlier studies but refuses to let that excuse confused organization or inadequate analysis. Particularly revealing is his ridicule of a section on insurance in French literature, where maxims about protection against misfortune take the place of legal reasoning. The review offers a compact, sharp-edged example of Somary’s critical standard: even a difficult and little-studied subject demands systematic treatment, not merely accumulated materials and quotations.

When does a merchant’s experience become economic theory rather than advice to his son? In this short, caustic review of Richard Ehrenberg’s Das Haus Parish in Hamburg, Felix Somary challenges the promotion of biographical detail into scholarly explanation. Parish’s meals, guests and wine consumption exemplify what Somary regards as misplaced emphasis; injunctions to rise early and attend the exchange hardly establish an original theorist. Somary acknowledges Ehrenberg’s diligence as a collector of material while denying that accumulation alone constitutes analysis. The review offers a pointed dispute over what business biography can explain—and what, in Somary’s judgement, it must do to earn its claims to theoretical significance.

A balance sheet need not disclose the full extent of a company’s obligations. This is the point Felix Somary endorses in his brief 1906 notice of the commemorative volume for Reichsbank President Koch. While noting Rießer’s study of supervisory-board reform, he concentrates on Simon’s distinction between legal rights and liabilities and their recorded accounting representation. Giro liabilities provide the concrete example of what a balance sheet leaves undisclosed. The notice captures Somary’s interest in a precise boundary between law and economics: what accounts record is not necessarily everything a company owes.

Can gains for exporters justify an optimistic account of currency depreciation? In this brief 1906 review of Mitjavile’s study of Spain’s exchange-rate crisis, Felix Somary endorses a sharply different balance sheet: benefits for a narrow group set against dearer food, speculative commerce and heavier foreign debt payments. His judgement combines approval of Mitjavile’s fiscal explanation—government dependence on advances from the note-issuing bank—with appreciation of his caution about evidence. Tariff changes and returning colonial capital complicate even apparently striking exchange-rate data. The review offers a compact view of what Somary values in monetary analysis: attention to who gains and loses, institutional causes, and restraint in attributing economic effects.

Reliable tables can outlast an unsuccessful introduction: that distinction anchors Felix Somary’s brief 1906 review of Wagon’s study of German joint-stock companies. Somary praises the annual financial tables, whose accuracy he tested by spot checks, while stressing their restriction to shares listed in Berlin. His interest is comparative rather than merely descriptive. Drawing on his own comparison with Austria, he singles out borrowing, higher average profits, and greater sensitivity to economic fluctuations among German companies. The review offers a compact example of how Somary evaluates statistical evidence: separating the quality of compilation from that of exposition, and asking what international comparisons the available figures can support.

A stronger rupee might burden exporters without reducing their sales: lower freight charges or changing tastes could outweigh the exchange-rate effect. This distinction between an isolated monetary mechanism and actual economic outcomes anchors Felix Somary’s 1907 comparative review of studies by Otto Heyn, Anton Arnold, and M. Bothe. Somary values Heyn’s theoretical ingenuity but challenges his separation of domestic and export prices; he especially praises Arnold’s attention to economic practice. His predominantly favorable judgment of India’s currency reform remains qualified by uneven benefits: easier capital movements did not necessarily improve agricultural finance. This compact review offers a concrete lesson in assessing monetary policy when exchange rates, transport costs, commodity prices, and consumer demand change together.

Government securities may look like a secure reserve for a note-issuing bank—but can they be sold when a crisis makes liquidity essential? In this short policy article, Felix Somary separates the capital needed to establish an issuer’s reputation from the investments that sustain its practical influence. He argues that an established, trusted bank may not need equity for note issue in principle, while questioning whether the English and French preference for government securities provides the protection intended. His preference for narrowly restricted commercial banking rests on both realizability and participation in the bill market. The article offers a concrete distinction between assets that appear safe and assets that allow a bank to act, linking portfolio choices to the effectiveness of its discount rate.