European cartels, European multinationals and economic de-globalisation: Insights from the rayon industry, c. 1900–1939

Abstract

This article offers an account of European cartelisation in the rayon industry, with a particular emphasis on the inter-war period. It adds to the debate about the role of European cartels in the multinationalisation of European big business. While showing that cartelisation went hand in hand with rapid growth and a boom in foreign direct investment in the 1920s, it argues that, contrary to a widely held view, the collapse of the international financial system, the smooth working of which was a sine qua non for the functioning of a European sales agency, hindered international cartelisation in the 1930s.