Abstract
Direct participation by the state in international trading activities is only one of very many forms of state intervention in the flow of commodities across national borders. All forms of intervention distort the pattern of trade from what it would have been in the absence of intervention. There is a well-developed theory of intervention which quantifies the magnitude of government interventions and predicts their effects on the quantities traded, consumed and produced of commodities. Somewhat surprisingly, in view of its significant share of total global commodity trade,l state trading has not been widely analysed in the terms of international trade theory. The only extensive analyses of state trading, as far as I am aware, are those of Meade (1955) and Humphrey (1959).2 Most of the literature on state trading has been concerned with trade in which either the Soviet Union and other centrally-planned economies or the developing countries provide at least one of the trading partners. This seems to have promoted a tendency to regard state trading as a problem in comparative systems, even though state trading is widespread (see Kostecki, 1978, 1979).3
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Notes and References
J. E. Meade, Trade and Welfare (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), chapter 1.
D. D. Humphrey, ‘The Economic Consequences of State Trading’, Law and Contemporary Problems, no. 24 (Spring 1959 ), pp. 276–90.
J. Bhagwati, ‘On the Equivalence of Tariffs and Quotas’ in R. E. Baldwin et al. (eds.), Trade, Growth and the Balance Payments: Essays in Honor of Gottfried Haberler ( Amsterdam: North Holland, 1965 ).
J. Bhagwati, ‘On the Equivalence of Tariffs and Quotas’ in J. Bhagwati (eds.), Trade, Tariffs and Growth ( London: Wiedefeld and Nicholson, 1969 ).
J. N. Hazard, ‘State Trading in History and Theory’, Law and Contemporary Problems, no. 24 (Spring 1959 ), p. 242.
R. E. Baldwin, Non-tariff Distortions of International Trade ( Washington: Brookings Institution, 1970 ), p. 11.
D. P. Ghai, State Trading and Regional Economic Integration Among Developing Countries ( New York: United Nations 1973 ), p. 9.
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A. Hazlewood, ‘State Trading and the East African Customs Union’, Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, no. 35 (May 1973), pp. 75–89.
For example, R. L. Allen, ‘State Trading and Economic Welfare’, Law & Contemporary Problems no. 24 (Spring 1959), p. 258. Baldwin, op. cit.
ECAFE, State Trading in Countries of the Asia and the Far East Région (New York: United Nations, 1964), pp. 1–2. Ghai, op. cit., pp. 9–11 and Kostecki (1978), op. cit., p. 188.
J. Viner, ‘International Relations between State-Controlled National Economies’, American Economic Review no. 34, supplement (March 1944), p. 439.
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P. Dasgupta, and J. E. Stiglitz. ‘Tariffs vs. Quotas as Revenue Raising Devices under Uncertainty’, American Economic Review vol. 67, no. 5 (December 1977), pp. 975–81. This paper demonstrates this in the case of tariffs or quotas which are used to raise revenue for the state.
P. J. Lloyd, Non-Tariff Distortions of Australian Trade ( Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1973 ), pp. 161–3.
J. Bhagwati, ‘The Generalized Theory of Distortions and Welfare’, in J. Bhagwati et al. (eds.), Trade, Balance of Payments and Growth: Papers in International Economics in Honor of Charles P. Kindleberger (Amsterdam: North-Holland, 1971.)
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© 1982 M. M. Kostecki
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Lloyd, P.J. (1982). State Trading and the Theory of International Trade. In: Kostecki, M.M. (eds) State Trading in International Markets. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-05887-7_7
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