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The American Challenge of the Twenties: Multinationals and the European Motor Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 March 2009

James Foreman-Peck
James Foreman-Peck
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Economics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, Great Britain NE1-7RU.
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Abstract

The different rates of technical progress in Western Europe and the United States, exemplified by the motor industry, created a problem of adjustment in international payments by the 1920s. American direct investment in manufacturing in Europe was a manifestation of technological superiority and a partial solution to the payments problem. The scale of their operations gave the American motor vehicle firms an advantage even in foreign production. An alternative way of closing the technological gap, the transfer of machine tools and trained men from America to Europe, allowed the European motor vehicle producers to compete without becoming entirely American-owned.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Economic History , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , December 1982 , pp. 865 - 881
Copyright
Copyright © The Economic History Association 1982

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