Further Directions for Research on Intra-Firm Trade

It is increasingly recognised that international exchange of goods and services, like equivalent domestic exchange, takes place both through hierarchies and on markets. (This useful terminology is that of Williamson, 1975). Indeed the growth of management contracts, technical assistance agreements, licensing arrangements and the like, probably implies an expansion of non-market hierarchical influences even upon what remain, on their face, ‘arm’s length’ market transactions; many of the latter now can easily take on some of the characteristics of intra-firm trade. More data on the size and nature of various kinds of intra-firm trade are urgently required, and a few suggestions in this respect were made in Chapter 2.