Book
Commodities in Crisis

The Commodity Crisis of the 1980s and the Political Economy of International Commodity Policies

With the dramatic changes in the global political scene, many developing countries are re-evaluating their economic and political priorities. This reappraisal scrutinizes their dependence on specific commodities and the crisis into which this market has been thrown in the last decade.

This work relates the main theoretical and empirical issues in the collapse in commodity prices since 1980--a major cause of the Third World economic crises--to perceived conflicts of interest between developed and developing countries.

Maizels continues his study by discussing the elements of a new approach to an effective commodity policy for the future. He includes coverage of such major problems as the impact of commodity instability on the global economy, market structure, as well as synthetics and diversification.

This study will be of interest to academics and students of development economics and international trade as well as to policymakers in developing countries.

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Table of contents
  1. Part I
    1. The Commodity Price Collapse of the 1980s
    Alfred Maizels
  2. Part I
    2. The Impact on the Developing Countries
    Alfred Maizels
  3. Part I
    3. Raising Depressed Levels of Commodity Export Earnings
    Alfred Maizels
  4. Part I
    4. Instability, Stabilization Policy, and Economic Development
    Alfred Maizels
  5. Part I
    5. Commodity Markets and the World Economy
    Alfred Maizels
  6. Part II
    6. The Post–War Background
    Alfred Maizels
  7. Part II
    7. The Integrated Programme for Commodities and the Common Fund
    Alfred Maizels
  8. Part II
    8. Negotiations on Individual Commodities
    Alfred Maizels
  9. Part II
    9. Compensatory Finance
    Alfred Maizels
  10. Part III
    10. The Structure and Control of International Commodity Markets
    Alfred Maizels
  11. Part III
    11. Technological Change and the Challenge of Synthetics
    Alfred Maizels
  12. Part III
    12. Protectionist Barriers to Commodity Trade
    Alfred Maizels
  13. Part III
    13. New Trade Directions: South-South and East-South
    Alfred Maizels
  14. Part III
    14. Diversification
    Alfred Maizels
  15. Part III
    15. The Future of International Commodity Policy
    Alfred Maizels
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