Imperfect Competition and International Commodity Trade

This book surveys recent theories of the structure of trade in the light of recent advances in applied econometrics. Unlike most existing literature, the book concentrates on the major exports of developing rather than industrialized countries. A general theoretical framework is developed for commodity trade, its empirical validity is tested, and alternative trade policies are assessed. The importance of international commodity trade has increased in recent years as the developing countries have struggled to deal with their external debt and to sustain their economic growth. These efforts have placed export expansion in the forefront of analytical and policy concerns. The book should be of interest to international trade economists, researchers in trade theories and relations, as well as econometricians.Table of ContentPart I. International Commodity Trade: The determinants of international commodity trade; The empirical analysis of commodity trade; Part II. Commodity Trade Theory: The demand for traded commodities; The supply of traded commodities; Equilibrium conditions in commodity trade; Summary; Part III. Dynamics of Commodity Trade: Specification strategy; The demand functions; The supply functions; Summary; Part IV. Empirical Analysis of Commodity Trade: Testing development trade theories; Commodity exports of Latin America; The demand for commodity imports; The demand for commodity exports; Characterization of commodity export supply; Commodity market price formation; Summary; Part V. Modelling Trade Repercussions and Trade Policies: The international transmission of income changes; Optimal export policies; Trade liberalization; Summary; Annexes: A Data and estimation procedure; B Dynamic system of equations; C Regression results of model equations; D Derivation of equations; References