Stateless Commerce: The Diamond Network and the Persistence of Relational Exchange

How does Manhattan’s 47th Street diamond district thrive as an ethnic marketplace without lawyers, courts, and state coercion? Barak Richman draws on insider interviews to show why relational exchange based on familiarity, trust, and community enforcement succeeds and what it reveals about the modern state’s limitations in governing the economy.

Ellickson, Yale Law School) . (Robert C. Through the eternally fascinating lens of the diamond trade, Richman explores the potential, and the shortcomings, of stateless commerce. A solid synthesis and weighty contribution

Bartlett Professor of Law and Business Administration at Duke University School of Law. Richman is Edgar P. Barak D. . and Elizabeth C