Research Catalog

Title

Stateless commerce : the diamond network and the persistence of relational exchange / Barak D. Richman.

Author

Richman, Barak

Publication

• Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.
• ©2017

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 217 pages : illustrations; 25 cm

Summary

In Stateless Commerce, Barak Richman uses the diamond industry to explore how ethnic trading networks operate and why they persist in the twenty-first century. How, for example, does the Forty-Seventh Street diamond district in midtown Manhattan--surrounded by skyscrapers and sophisticated financial institutions--continue to thrive as an ethnic marketplace that operates like a traditional bazaar? Conventional models of economic and technological progress suggest that such primitive commercial networks would be displaced by new trading paradigms, yet in the heart of New York City the old world persists. Richman's explanation is deceptively simple. Far from being an anachronism, Forty-Seventh Street's ethnic enclave is an adaptive response to the unique pressures of the diamond industry. Ethnic trading networks survive because they better fulfill many functions usually performed by state institutions. While the modern world rests heavily on lawyers, courts, and state coercion, ethnic merchants regularly sell goods and services by relying solely on familiarity, trust, and community enforcement--what economists call "relational exchange." These commercial networks insulate themselves from the outside world because the outside world cannot provide those assurances. Extending the framework of transactional cost and organizational economics, Stateless Commerce draws on rare insider interviews to explain why personal exchange succeeds, even as most global trade succumbs to the forces of modernization, and what it reveals about the limitations of the modern state in governing the economy.--

Subjects

• Diamond industry and trade
• Exchange
• Consensual contracts > Social aspects > New York (State) > New York
• Statelessness
• New York (State) > New York
• Diamond industry and trade > New York (State) > New York
• Exchange > New York (State) > New York

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Contents

Statelessness in context -- A case study in statelessness: diamonds, the diamond network, and diamontaires -- The mechanics of statelessness -- A theory of statelessness -- The costs of statelessness: cartel behavior and resistance to change -- Lessons from statelessness: economic history, ethnic networks, and development policy -- Governing statelessness -- The limits of statelessness and an autopsy of cooperation.

Call Number

JFE 19-3888

ISBN

• 9780674972179
• 0674972171

LCCN

2016050799

OCLC

959649249

Author

Richman, Barak, author.

Title

Stateless commerce : the diamond network and the persistence of relational exchange / Barak D. Richman.

Publisher

Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2017.

Copyright Date

©2017

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Bibliography

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Note

AUTH: DUKE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAW. EXAMINES PERSISTENCE OF ETHNIC TRADING NETWORKS IN 21ST CENTURY

Research Call Number

JFE 19-3888