Search results

Since the first Volume of this Bibliography there has been an explosion of literature in all the main areas of business. The researcher and librarian have to be able to uncover specific articles devoted to certain topics. This Bibliography is designed to help. Volume III, in addition to the annotated list of articles as the two previous volumes, contains further features to help the reader. Each entry within has been indexed according to the Fifth Edition of the SCIMP/SCAMP Thesaurus and thus provides a full subject index to facilitate rapid information retrieval. Each article has its own unique number and this is used in both the subject and author index. The first Volume of the Bibliography covered seven journals published by MCB University Press. This Volume now indexes 25 journals, indicating the greater depth, coverage and expansion of the subject areas concerned.

Since the adoption in 1976 of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, only four international commodity agreements have been concluded, of which only one, the International Natural Rubber Agreement (1979), was new. The others are the International Sugar Agreement (1978), the International Cocoa Agreement (1980) and the International Tin Agreement (1981). In view of the broad political support for international commodity agreements, the progress towards concluding such agreements is slow. Moreover, in some of them universality is lacking. Several countries which account for a substantial proportion of world production and consumption of, and trade in, the commodity subject to an international agreement, have not ratified or acceded to the relevant agreements. The duration of the negotiations has been exceedingly long in comparison with experience on negotiations of the previous agreements. This outcome, several years after the adoption of the Integrated Programme for Commodities, is disappointing and unexpected, especially since the basic purpose of that Programme and the setting up of the Common Fund in accordance with it was “to act as a catalyst for international commodity agreements”. The purpose of this article is to examine the reasons for this outcome.