This article describes the problems faced by reorganizers of distressed railroads in the late nineteenth century and how they were addressed by a combination of judicial intervention and financial innovations. In particular, the judicial innovations of supersenior financing, the equity receivership process, and the setting of upset values permitted firms to raise funds. The private financial innovations of deferred coupon debt, contingent charge securities, and voting trusts made subsequent default less likely. The private innovations can be interpreted as responses to both the distress of the railroads as well as the intervention by the courts that emasculated prior debt contracts.

This article examines the attempts by the United States to export industrial and managerial techniques to Britain in the early post-war years. It analyses the types of technical assistance offered by the U.S., the mechanisms developed to deliver this assistance, and the response of both British industry and government. The conclusion offered is that whilst there were problems of “fit” between the techniques advocated by U.S. agencies and the conditions faced by British industry, overall the reluctance of the British to embrace American techniques did not reflect a rounded assessment of their applicability so much as a series of institutional blockages and hostile attitudes.

During the Second World War leading belligerents such as Britain, the United States, and Germany, favored the use of fixed-price contracts for purchasing military aircraft. These contracts were believed to encourage economical and efficient production. Yet only Britain succeeded in developing contractual procedures based primarily upon the fixed price. This article examines the evolution of British contractual policy in the later 1930s, drawing upon both corporate and official records to explain why Britain succeeded where both America and Germany failed. Efforts to develop the fixed-price system in Britain were initially frustrated by the technological revolution which transformed aviation during the 1930s. Moreover, divided opinions within both the government and the aircraft industry helped prevent the emergence of a coherent contractual policy. By 1939, however, British aircraft manufacturers were unanimous in their support for fixed-price contracts.