A rationale for modern barter
(2003)
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- Authors
- Supervisors
- d'Aspremont, Claude
- Abstract
- This dissertation intends to offer a rationale for the persistent success of barter in the world economy, and in particular, for the development of the barter industry in industrialized countries. Therefore, it considers the three main forms of modern barter, notably (i) compensatory arrangements in international trade; (ii) Corporate Barter and Commercial Barter, which are the main sectors of the Barter Industry; (iii) non-profit barter organizations characterizing local trade, such as Hours, Time Dollars, LETS. Besides giving a descriptive account of the importance of barter, it presents a comparative analysis pointing out the elements these forms of barter have in common. Subsequently, the study focuses the attention on barter practices characterizing the domestic trade of industrialized countries. Besides the two sector of the barter industry, it considers also the barter activity occurring outside the system of organized barter networks. Moreover, the dissertation presents a theoretical model in partial equilibrium setting capturing the main characteristics of barter. It argues that, in a context of imperfect competition, barter can represent a profitable system of exchange, and in an example defines under which conditions firms gain from it. Finally, the dissertation ends with an empirical analysis of the U.S. barter industry. Besides testing some of the explanations of barter presented in the previous chapters, the analysis of official data intends to check some of the beliefs on barter the present literature supports. Therefore, it checks if corporate barter and commercial barter have the same pattern, and if domestic barter presents counter-cyclical feature.
- Affiliations
Citations
Cresti, B. (2003). A rationale for modern barter.