Rachel E. Kranton

Rachel E. Kranton, assistant professor of economics at the University of Maryland, explored the enduring importance of personal ties in negotiating economic exchange. In the expanding global economy, arrangements based on common ethnicity, family connections, and shared educational backgrounds still play an integral market role. Kranton investigated how community- and relationship-based channels of exchange can replace or complement impersonal markets. She also examined the emergence and disappearance of personal arrangements and impersonal markets within given economies, and probed whether expanding markets and opportunities for specialization reinforce or undermine the role of personal ties.