ABSTRACT
The fact that the operating enterprise in the less developed country (LDC) is a branch or a subsidiary of a large firm with its head office elsewhere, typically not in an ldc at all, and is one of several such extractive branches, has implications of considerable importance. Perfect decisions would require perfect information of two types: concerning the circumstances and consequences of the decision, and concerning the goals of the firm. The control of the technical, exploration, and marketing skills, and the related access to capital, are adequate to explain why the majority of newly-exploited large deposits are in the hands of one of the existing large firms. Except in the production of extremely standardized products, manufacturing firms must be able to respond to market demands, and changing market conditions. Concentration in a market can appear initially for a host of possible reasons, not the least likely of which may be simply luck and the workings of random processes.
