European Cartels and Technology Transfer

The view that European cartels facilitated the international diffusion of technology came to be widely held in the interwar era. ² During the negotiations surrounding the shape of the post-1945 global economic order, Anglo-American planners rejected schemes for the international extension of the Sherman Act on the grounds that the complete banning of international cartels would hamper the interchange of technology between Europe and the United States. ³ Through cross-licensing and other cartel understandings, and irrespective of growing international political strains, this interchange had in effect taken place in most innovative, high-tech industries (some of which were of the highest military importance) from the early 1920s well into the war years. ⁴ Yet despite its importance, the technological dimension of international cartels has generally been overlooked in postwar scholarship. Only in the past two decades has it begun to receive renewed scholarly attention. ⁵