Economic Success of Chinese Merchants in Southeast Asia

Download or read book Economic Success of Chinese Merchants in Southeast Asia written by Janet Tai Landa and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-11-30 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.