Abstract
International countertrade – tying an import to an export – emerged in the 1980s in response to the international debt crisis. Barter – the exchange of goods without using money – re-emerged in transition economies in the 1990s, in response to a domestic debt crisis. Both phenomena can be explained as institutional responses to contractual problems arising in imperfect capital and goods markets. Countertrade introduces a deal-specific collateral that improves the creditworthiness of countries and firms, and facilitates technology transfer to developing countries. Barter helps to overcome the lack of trust problem in the former Soviet Union.
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Marin, D., Schnitzer, M. (2018). Countertrade. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_217
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_217
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