• economic subordination
• imperfect competition
• Latin American Structuralism
• Old Institutionalism
• Evolutionary microeconomics

The present thesis aimed at exploring conceptual linkages pertaining to theories of economic systems, focusing particularly on their applications for the discipline of Development Economics.

Specifically, a conceptual hypothesis was suggested, that of subordinate markets. In its most basilar definition, subordinate markets are to represent competition settings marked by strong asymmetries in economic power and capability, and to dually relate such asymmetries to that of the ownership impending over the competing firms. Thus characterized, subordinate markets were conceived of for the depiction of markets whence foreign, more powerful and more capable, firms act, their competitive dynamics being related to economic markets outside of that over which they exercise dominance.

This hypothesis was argued to be a promising working start for it was representative of the economic impasse that marked the development of peripheral, late industrializing, Latin American countries. Being a conceptual construct whose substance demands more study than what time and space allowed for, this thesis instead opted to venture down a route other than the full exposition of market subordination. Instead, it sought to provide a reliable system of theories on economic processes, from which bases a mature model was to be posteriorly designed.

Prior to the inquiry, a forewarning against the prevalent microeconomic approach to imperfect competition was presented. This was resorted to as means for providing a solid justification for the pursuit of a model of competition in absentia of their canonical orthodox counterparts. In coalition, impermeable market settings and herculean rationality were argued to be uncomfortable representations of economic structure and agency.

To envisage the erection of an alternative model of competition, the economic theories this research chose to amalgamate were the following.

First, Latin American Structuralism and its related study on economic vulnerability and dependency. From its open ended articulating of structure and agency, Structuralism was argued to be inviting of two other schools of thought: one of agency-reliant structural formations, the other of structure-sensitive agency evolution. These were, respectively, Old Institutionalism and Evolutionary Microeconomics. From the three, a dynamic market structure could be designed. One of heterogeneous agents, with highly deliberative proclivities, who interact in a substantially and procedurally uncertain market, and whose behavior shapes and is shaped by an aggregate economy of characteristics different from the linear sum of its parts. By introducing underdevelopment in the mix, one could think of a ‘badly’ evolving market – and could conceive of this evolution as, however bad from any normative point of view, a nevertheless valid process, logically stemming from the arrangement and articulation of the pieces. Finally, models of hysteresis were suggested. This research sustained that, given the strong non-linearities to permeate the argument devised, the time-motions and sequential evolutions of the system could be improved in observance to some of hysteresis basilar predicates.

By ways of a tentative conclusion, the thesis then proposed two objectives to be pursued by those with a possible interest in the subordinate markets construct.

First, the articulation between the afore-delineated pieces is still to be properly formalized under one, coherent, frame. Second, upon coherent amalgamation, the model thus envisaged is still one whose main directionality is lacking. Latin American Structuralism gives meaning and some of the deeply lying causes for the phenomenon of subordination, and the three remaining Schools are appropriate inasmuch as they provide an alternative scaffolding for thinking of economic interaction. But a more direct, cause-and-consequence account on the system’s variables, is still missing. By imposing stricter adherence to a theory in detriment of others, this last step is more consequential than its predecessors. For this reason, it justifies its own space for research. Its pursuit should, at any rate, follow the guidelines uncovered by the present thesis.

And thus a model for subordinate markets should obtain.