economic dualism A way of conceptualizing the existence of two (sometimes more) separate but symbiotic sets of economic processes or markets within the same political or national social framework. In Third World societies, for example, a dual economy is formed by the coexistence of peasant subsistence agriculture and cash production of basic commodities or industrial goods for the international market. An analogous division exists in highly industrialized economies between the corporate core and peripheral firms and labour-markets. See also LABOUR-MARKET SEGMENTATION.

dualism, economic See ECONOMIC DUALISM.