This chapter surveys international capital movements in the 1920s. It investigates the initial role of these capital flows in helping to promote the measure of stability achieved in the mid-1920s, and then their contribution to the detrimental developments which culminated in the crisis of 1931. Starting with an overview of the scale, origins, and destination of foreign lending during this decade based on recently compiled-estimates, the chapter provides a more comprehensive picture than hitherto available. It then considers in more detail the special relevance of the inflow and withdrawal of these external funds to the position of Germany, including their relationship to reparations, and to the producers of food and other primary products in central and eastern Europe and the Americas.
Keywords: international capital flows, reparations, current account, foreign lending, external funds, German capital imports