La strutturazione del commercio mondiale dell'alluminio. Tecnologia, traders e cartelli (1886-1914)

The international aluminium market represents a specific case in the process of "commodisation" that characterised the pre-1914 period. Unlike other non-ferrous metals, whose origins are lost in the midst of the time, aluminium was a new and high technology material. On the one hand, the international aluminium market was prematurely born as global, in spite of the national legal monopolies that derived from patents on its technology. On the other hand, aluminium escaped from the control of the traders, such as Metallgesellschaft or Aron Hirsch & Sohne, that characterised the global trade of other non-ferrous metals. The early aluminium market was developed through a specific marketing activity: the competitive edge of thus metal became the price stability, which was chosen by the producers to make aluminium different from other non-ferrous metals.