Previous page | New search |
The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here
Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Planning Change in African Urban Food Retailing Institutions: A Liberian Perspective |
Author: | Handwerker, W. Penn |
Year: | 1978 |
Periodical: | Liberian Studies Journal |
Volume: | 8 |
Issue: | 2 |
Pages: | 133-143 |
Language: | English |
Geographic term: | Liberia |
Subjects: | market marketplaces food Economics and Trade Development and Technology |
Abstract: | Whereas the role of agricultural change in economic development is clearly delineated, the role of marketing change frequently is obscure, and the role of market-place distribution especially ambiguous. Characteristically, market placers appear simply to be crude agglomerations of equipment and haphazardly organised personennel, while the apparent intensity and atomistic quality of competition suggests that there are stringent limits on capital accumulation and firm growth that actually impede development. From this perspective, urban planners might be well-advised to encourage the growth of supermarkets or other types of fixed-premium firms and the elimination of the daily markets from which most food purchases currently are made. By demonstrating that the limitations to food retailing development stem not from competition among firms but from the demand factors to which they must cater, in particular the discretionary incomes of consumers and the demand for personalised economic ties with retailers, data from Monrovia, Liberia, suggest both the conditions under which such changes in retail structure can or cannot be efficiently accomplished, and an economic indicator of when in particular cases such change might be successful. Fig., notes. |