Soviet Foreign Trade : The Decision Process / by S.H. Gardner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gardner, H. Stephen, author.

Series:

Dimensions of international business.

Dimensions of international business

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

International economic relations.

International Economics.

Local Subjects:

International Economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (XIV, 189 p.)

Edition:

1st ed. 1983.

Place of Publication:

Dordrecht : Springer Netherlands : Imprint: Springer, 1983.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The enigma of Soviet society is nowhere more strikingly manifested than in its economic relations with the outside world. Western business people, even those with representative offices in Moscow, often describe their negotiations with the Soviets as a veritable black-box affair. Offers for purchase and sale are funneled into the bureaucracy, usually via the Ministry of Foreign Trade, where they are digested for very long periods of time. When a response emerges, little is usually known about the level at which decisions were made, and even less is known about the criteria that were employed to make them. In the abstract, at least, foreign trade decision making in the Western market economies is a rather simple exercise. An American consumer will purchase a Toyota rather than a comparable Chrysler if its price, expressed in dollars at the market exchange rate, is lower. The influences of governmental tariffs, quantitative restrictions, foreign exchange controls, "buy American" policies, and the like, are usually of only secondary importance. In contrast, the Soviet consumer, whether an individual or an industrial enterprise, does not generally have the authority to order the importation of goods or services. That authority is concentrated at the top of Soviet society and administered through a labyrinthine system of overlapping bureaucratic agencies. Furthermore, those Soviet agencies cannot respond to price signals in the same way as the American consumer can, because Soviet domestic prices and exchange rates are themselves set rather arbitrarily by governmental agencies.

Contents:

1 An Overview: The Bureaucracy and the Plan

The Foreign Trade Bureaucracies

Foreign Trade Planning

2 The Party and the Government

The Communist Party

The National Government

Motivations of the Political Leadership

3 The Central Planning Agencies

The State Planning Committee (Gosplan)

The State Committee for Material and Technical Supply (Gossnab)

The State Committee for Science and Technology

The Ministry of Finance and the State Bank

The State Price Committee

4 The Foreign Trade and Industrial Ministries

The Ministry of Foreign Trade

The Industrial Ministries

5 Cost-Benefit Analysis for Foreign Trade

Foreign Trade Efficiency Indices: A Brief History

Efficiency Indices for Simple Commodity Trade

Inadequacies of Domestic Prices

Replacement of Prices with Full-Cost Indices

Advantages of Wholesale Prices over Full-Cost Indices

Special Problems of Import Valuation

Efficiency Indices for Specialization Agreements

Efficiency Indices for Credit Deliveries

Efficiency Indices for Compensation Agreements

Efficiency Indices for Trade in Licenses

Practical Application of Efficiency Indices

6 Foreign Trade Optimization Models

The Trzeciakowski Model

Shagalov’s Basic Model

Dynamic Models

Interregional Models

Models of Socialist Economic Integration

Branch Models

7 Empirical Analyses of Soviet Foreign Trade Decision Making

The Commodity Structure of Soviet Foreign Trade

The Traditional View

Fundamental Comparative Advantage

Cross-Sectional Commodity Studies

8 Summary and Conclusions

Notes

References.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

94-009-7415-9

OCLC:

1255223435