Economic Success of Chinese Merchants in Southeast Asia: Identity, Ethnic Cooperation and Conflict

Landa, Janet Tai

This book provides an original analysis of the economic success of Overseas Chinese merchants in Southeast Asia: The ethnically homogeneous group of Chinese middlemen is an informal, low-cost organization for the provision of club goods, e.g. contract enforcement, that are essential to merchants’ success. The author’s theory - and various extensions, with emphasis on kinship and other trust relationships - draws on economics and the other social sciences, and beyond to evolutionary biology. Empirical material from her fieldwork forms the basis for developing her unique, integrative and transdisciplinary theoretical framework, with important policy implications for understanding ethnic conflict in multiethnic societies where minority groups dominate merchant roles.

Details

Published by: Springer

Publication Date: 2016-12-15

Format: Hardcover

ISBN-13: 9783642540189

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-54019-6

Dimensions: 235cm x155cm

Pages: 371