Abstract
This paper examines the response of British salitreros to changing supply and demand conditions during the interwar years when the nitrate industry faced the twin problems of overproduction and falling prices, in part the result of competition from synthetic nitrogen producers in Europe. It is set against the background of two debates: the response of British business in Chile to new market conditions, and the role of British firms in the interwar Chilean nitrate industry. The paper examines the strategies nitrate producers adopted to protect their investments: plant closure, industrial concentration, technological change and defensive investment, none of which offered an obvious or permanent solution. Between 1929 and 1931, the remaining British companies very largely sold out to a joint venture, COSACH, organised by the US Guggenheim Corporation and the Chilean government, but this company itself collapsed within two years of its formation. The conclusion is that the retreat was neither a panicked response to an unfavourable market nor an example of entrepreneurial failure, but more a case of managed withdrawal which diversified business away from nitrate and towards alternative trades.
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This paper has benefitted from the advice of Rory Miller, who also gave me access to his research notes. I alone am responsible for any remaining errors and omissions.
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Greenhill, R. (2019). Managed Decline, Headlong Retreat or Entrepreneurial Failure? British Nitrate Producers and the Withdrawal from Chile, 1920–1930. In: Llorca-Jaña, M., Miller, R., Barría, D. (eds) Capitalists, Business and State-Building in Chile. Studies of the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-14152-3_4
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