Success of Developing Countries' Export Strategies and World Trade Structure

World trade structure is being altered by European 1992 economic integration to highly concentrated from relatively unconcentrated as measured by the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index. Export-promotion strategies of developing countries were effective in an unconcentrated environment in conjunction with U.S. efforts to lower tariff entry barriers. Sizeable concentration increases occur from creation of free trade zones tilting the 1990s toward an oligopolist-oligopsonist trade environment. This market structure is likely to have larger entry barriers creating a less favorable environment for export-promotion policies. Plus large trade zones may attempt to extract gains out of developing countries.