ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we review the concrete, institutional world markets for Tropical Africa's trans-oceanic crops. When comparing them with the abstract world markets of economic theory, two points must be noted. First, while the whole of global supply and demand is supposed to operate in the abstract world market, only a fraction of global supply is sold in the concrete world market. While the transactions and prices in the concrete market are public, the transactions outside the market are called private deals or treaties. (As they are private, contract details such as prices are unknown to rival buyers and sellers.) Second, even if the privately sold volume far exceeds the public volume, the concrete market continues to function satisfactorily as long as it is believed that the price registered in the concrete market equals the hypothetical equilibrium price of the abstract world market.
