Abstract
Prof. D. S. Landes and other American scholars who did pioneering research on French business history studied the reasons for the economic stagnation of France since the turn of the century. They discovered that most of the business enterprises in France were family-owned, small in scale, and managed conservatively.
By contrast, Prof. B. Gille and other French business historians emphasized the success of national economic planning since the end of the World War II, and tried to make it clear that the economic development in this period stemmed from various phenomena of the late 19th century : the corporation system, the joint-stock deposit and investment banks, and the technological innovations in the steel industry. For the purpose of clarifying contributions of 19th century entrepreneurs to the economic development in France, French scholars have published two journals, Histoire des Enterprises and Revue d'Histoire de la Siderurgie.
The author reviewed the papers appearing in the above two journals, and outlined the development of the banking and the steel-making businesses in France.
