International Transactions and Regional Integration

Abstract

The relevance of transaction analysis to the study of regional integration has been the subject of controversy. In dialectical fashion though, this controversy has produced improved understanding. Early exponents, who tended at times to overestimate the efficacy of the transaction approach, have accepted its limitations, and, by the same token, some early critics of transaction analysis have accepted its usefulness. Overall, we have come to recognize that regional integration is a multidimensional phenomenon, much more complex than initially imagined. Transaction approaches are appropriate and useful for investigating some aspects of regional integration; they are less useful for investigating others.