Global trading companies in the commodity chain of rubber between 1890 and the 1920s

Abstract

The article deals with the rubber boom at the beginning of the 20th century, which fundamentally changed the global rubber market. Trading companies played a crucial role in this development, connecting the areas of production with centres of commerce and with places of industrial usage of rubber. The article follows the transformation from a wild rubber to a plantation rubber industry by using a global commodity chain approach to compare the function and position of German and British firms in the global rubber market. It combines the chain analysis with the theory of transaction costs to discuss the strategies of trading firms in these changing environments of globalisation. The article reveals that transaction cost explains only a part of the transformation, while institutional settings played a major role for the strategy of trading firms.

Keywords:

• globalisation
• trading companies
• rubber
• commodity chain
• transaction cost economics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.