The economics of marketing systems seems a likely subject for anthropological research, particularly for students of agrarian (peasant) economies and societies. As Mintz stated some time ago (92), marketing systems are major arenas of economic decision making, as well as mechanisms of social articulation in "peasant" societies. Yet by and large anthropologists do not tackle markets as systemic phenomena. They either produce ethnographies of individual mar­ ketplaces and their settings, e.g. Dewey (31), Fox (41), Sinha (116), Waterbury ( 142), and many of the contributors to Markets in Africa ( 1 5); or they debate certain aspects of peasant market exchange, e.g. Belshaw (7), Nash (98), Beals (3, 5), Cook (28), Swetnam (133). In both kinds of studies marketing is usually described from a peasant or peasant-community perspective. The assumption seems to be that the economic problems of concern are common to all levels of analysis and thus universal and general. But as Samuelson points out (III), this is a Type 1 error or the fallacy of composition-what is true of a part is not necessarily true of the whole. In the case of market studies, this flawed assumption results in unusually parochial problem orientations such that the general dynamics of market (and economic) organization are not treated. To make the problems and concerns of economic anthropology productive and of general interest, we must examine such things as marketing systems (and economic systems) as well as "peasant" markets (and "peasant" economies). Skinner's study of marketing and social structure in rural China (l18) stands as a notable exception to anthropological parochialism in market studies. The system perspective provided by central-place theory allowed Skinner to move beyond particular events of market behavior to a general model of market process. This perspective also allowed him to view peasant market behavior in its proper

Economics of Marketing Systems: Models From Economic Geography

Sixty years after the four cornerstones of retail location theory were laid down, a substantial conceptual edifice has been constructed on top of central place theory, spatial interaction theory, bid rent theory and the principle of minimum differentiation. Although normative in ethos and unrealistic in assumptions, the concepts continue to attract considerable academic attention and not a little controversy. This paper reviews the literature on retail location theory, describes some recent and comparatively unsung advances, presents a simple model of conceptual evolution and draws attention to several neglected research issues.

Retail Location Theory: Evolution and Evaluation

Retail location theory: evolution and evaluation

As multinational corporations have expanded beyond the borders of developed economies and into fast-growing developing regions of the world, they have struggled to understand and manage a retail format that is dominant in many of those economies—the small retailer. The authors first synthesize existing literature on the phenomenon of small retailing to deliver a macro perspective of this retail format and its evolution. Then, they delve deeper into an urban market in a developing economy and provide an empirical illustration that sheds light on the decision-making processes of the small retailers and their operational performance. This yields a complementary micro perspective of the phenomenon that has been absent in the literature. The analysis provides insights into how firms that enter markets in developing economies can manage and profit from this important but frequently overlooked distribution format.

Practices and Performance of Small Retail Stores in Developing Economies

On One Geography and a Third World

https://www.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1538-4632.1969.tb00611.x

A Theory of the Spatial Structure of Internal Trade In Underdeveloped Countries

Consumer Welfare in Periodic Market Systems

Analyses of the locational and temporal spacing of periodic market-places have provided only partial confirmation of the hypothesis ‘proximity in space implies separation in time.’ The patterns, which are observed in almost all empirical studies, are explained here in terms of a simple avoidance rule constrained by the geometry of periodic market-place systems. The results of a series of simulations suggest that the constraints of geometry are such that only simple avoidance rules can be applied, and any more sophisticated rationale is therefore questionable.



Les etudes portant sur le degre de separation spatiale et temporelle des places de marche periodique ne confirment que partiellement l' hypothese que proximite spatiale implique separation dans le temps. Les effets observes dans presque toutes les etudes empiriques sont expliques ici en terme d' une simple loi d' evitement, sous les contraintes de la geometrie du systeme des marches periodiques. Les resultats d'une serie d' analyses de simulations suggerent l' existence de contraintes geometriques telles que seules de simples lois d' evitement semblent operationnelles. Ainsi, toute autre explication plus complique est remise en question.

Alan M. Hay

Papers

A Theory of the Spatial Structure of Internal Trade In Underdeveloped Countries

Consumer Welfare in Periodic Market Systems

The spatio‐temporal synchronization of periodic market‐places: a re‐examination

Interregional trade and money flows in Nigeria, 1964

The spatio‐temporal synchronization of periodic market‐places: simulation experiments on two african periodic market systems