Pryor Frederic. Communist foreign trade system

Cambridge, MA: The M.I.T. Press, 1963. — 296 p.Academic research on the Communist Bloc presents some particular difficulties which, in light of my six-month imprisonment in East Berlin, deserve some comment. Securing sufficient information to form a balanced picture of any aspect of Communist economies takes a good deal of time and patience. As I discuss in the text, information has been scanty and highly selective. Moreover, even serious Communist discussion on foreign trade issues has been, for the most part, marked by tendentious justifications of government policy, vacuous name-calling and imputation of motives, or assertions of spectacular growth and efficiency, substantiated by reference to the growing Socialist consciousness of the citizentry. Even a large number of academic articles on technical trade topics have been marked by a low degree of rigour and a surprisingly high degree of ignorance. Although the situation is now slowly changing, reading of the Bloc economic press is usually tedious and unrewarding. At this point several alternatives are open to the Western economist. He can, for instance, analyse Communist foreign trade in the same way as Communist economists analyse ours. This would include such tricks as deliberate lies (e.g. the Bloc economist who claimed that us grants to underdeveloped countries were 'really' loans whose repayment dates had not been established); imputation of motives (e.g. the East German Assistant Foreign Trade Minister who recently asserted that the Communist Council of Mutual Economic Assistance was founded to promote peace while the European Economic Community was founded by the monopolists to unleash World War III); figures quoted out of context; and so forth. On the other hand, the Western economist can try to transcend this nonsense and employ standard research methods and statistical techniques in order to gain an accurate and objective view of the situation and to eliminate as much as possible any sources of political bias. In carrying out this study I thought it important not only to thoroughly review the East Bloc economic literature on foreign trade but also to hold interviews with foreign trade experts in both East and West. In this way I could not only obtain more information but could also hear all sides of the various issues which I was trying to judge. Complete objectivity may be impossible ; if there is bias in this study, however, it is in no way deliberate since I have taken all possible measures to avoid it.List of tablesSurveyThe role of foreign tradeAutarky in the CMEA Bloc
Results of the Autarky
Specialization of Production: 1956-60
Summary and ConclusionsNational aspectsProblems of planning and organizationPlans and Performance
Dilemmas of Organization and Planning
Links between Foreign and Domestic Markets
Summary and ConclusionsReforms in the foreign trade systemChanges in Organization and the Planning Process
Other Changes in Planning
Links between Foreign and Domestic Markets
Summary and ConclusionsCriteria for decision-makingThe Domestic Price System of the DDR
Criteria for Trade: Balancing of the Material Balances
Criteria for Trade: The 'Preisausgleich'
Criteria for Trade: Profitability Coefficients
Criteria for Trade: Natural Resources and Factor Endowments
Other Criteria for Trade
Incentives for Foreign Trade
Foreign Trade and Investment Criteria
Summary and ConclusionsInternational aspectsThe price setting processIntra-Bloc Foreign Trade Prices: A Bloc View
The Process of Setting Intra-Bloc Foreign Trade Prices
Empirical Analysis of Intra-Bloc Foreign Trade Prices
Theoretical and Practical Problems in Price Setting between Bloc Nations
Future Trends in Intra-Bloc Foreign Trade PricingThe choice of trade partnersThe Pattern of CMEA Trade between East and West
The Pattern of CMEA Trade between Economically Developed and Underdeveloped Non-Communist Nations
The Pattern of Trade within the CMEA Bloc
Summary and ConclusionsThe system as a wholeMechanisms in intra-bloc foreign tradeMechanisms in Trade between Market Economies
Co-ordination of Production and Trade in the Bloc
Joint Planning Efforts
Summary and Conclusions