Although international finance and banking has been the subject of much research and writing, the economic impact of banks on industrial structures and the relations between banking and industry in the twentieth century have remained a relatively unexplored area. This volume examines and interprets the economic effect of the financing of industry by banks and of the banks’ credit intermediation in industrialised economies. Particular attention is given to the interplay of economics and politics, to the connections between bankers and industrialists, and to the significance of interlocking directorships. A special section is devoted to a hitherto wholly neglected problem in economic history: the vital influence of universal banking in small but highly industrialised countries in central Europe and Scandinavia.