The Decision Process
Buch, Englisch, 189 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 1040 g
ISBN: 978-0-89838-111-5
Verlag: Springer
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.
Zielgruppe
Research
Autoren/Hrsg.
Fachgebiete
Weitere Infos & Material
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.
