Buyer Concentration in Markets for Developing Country Exports

The authors explore the implications of buyer concentration in markets for primary commodity exports of developing countries. Simple partial equilibrium models of monopsony and oligopsony show that the best available policy for the exporting country may be to tax exports so as to extract some of the profits of the monopsonist, even though doing so will actually worsen the distortion caused by the buyer's market power. They also explore the general equilibrium implications of these results for factor markets and for patterns of trade.