Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/213504 
Year of Publication: 
2018
Series/Report no.: 
Development Research Working Paper Series No. 03/2018
Publisher: 
Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD), La Paz
Abstract (Translated): 
We explore reasons underlying the economic prosperity of certain popular merchants in Bolivia. Even if economics often associates popular merchants with poor economic performance and low productivity, anthropological evidence shows the existence of large fortunes in the bolivian popular economy (Tassi et al., 2013). We develop a formal model which traces back the origin of this prosperity in the coopetitive capacity (competitive plus cooperative) of popular merchants built upon the sharing of input costs. We argue that the coopetitive capacity of these actors is based on social networks of godfatherhood weaved at popular celebrations, which we document with ethnographic evidence.
Subjects: 
informal economy
popular economy
club theory
collective action
JEL: 
O17
D02
D24
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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