@article{Fafchamps:102523,
      recid = {102523},
      author = {Fafchamps, Marcel and Minten, Bart},
      title = {PROPERTY RIGHTS IN A FLEA MARKET ECONOMY},
      address = {1999-03},
      number = {595-2016-39982},
      series = {MSSD paper},
      pages = {44},
      year = {1999},
      abstract = {This paper studies liberalized grain markets in Madagascar  and examines how property
rights are protected and  contracts are enforced among agricultural traders. We  find
that the incidence of theft and breach of contract is  low and that the losses resulting from
such instances are  small. This, however, does not result from reliance on  legal institutions
-- actual recourse to police and courts  is fairly rare, except in cases of theft -- but  from
traders’ reluctance to expose themselves to  opportunism. As a result, Malagasy grain
trade resembles a  flea market, with little or no forward contracting and high  transactions
costs. The dominant contract enforcement  mechanism is trust-based relationships. Trust
is  established primarily through repeated interaction with  little role for referral by other
traders. Information on  bad clients does not circulate widely, hence severely  limiting
group punishments for non payment.},
      url = {http://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/102523},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.102523},
}