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AEGIS European Conference on African Studies
11 - 14 July 2007
African Studies Centre, Leiden, The Netherlands
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‘Thin market culture’: Malawian entrepreneurs in an emergent transnational market
| Panel |
12. African entrepreneurs and/in emerging markets: towards a situational understanding of entrepreneurial behaviour?
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| Paper ID | 144 |
| Author(s) |
Andersson, Jens
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| Paper |
No paper submitted
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| Abstract | In the debate on economic liberalization and market development in Africa, it is now well recognized that the former does not automatically lead to the latter. Recently, institutional economic perspectives have started to conceptualize the market itself as an institution regulating exchange and coordination functions in an economy. Thus, limited market development becomes understood in terms of thin markets and market failure, i.e. underdeveloped institutions failing to communicate the right coordinating messages in economic exchange. This paper, which builds upon an ethnographic analysis of Malawian entrepreneurs operating in a transnational transport market, seeks to challenge these notions. It argues that not markets fail, but rather, that businesses fail because entrepreneurs operate in a confined social environment which values visible signs of prosperity and imposes huge demands for cash. |
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