Description: In Making a Market, Jean Ensminger analyzes the process by which the market was introduced into the economy of a group of Kenyan pastoralists. Professor Ensminger employs new institutional economic analysis to assess the impact of new market institutions on production and distribution, with particular emphasis on the effect of institutions on decreasing transaction costs over time. This study traces the effects of increasing commercialization on the economic well-being of individual households, rich and poor alike, over considerable time and analyzes the process by which institutions themselves are transformed as a market economy develops. This case study points out the importance of understanding the roles of ideology and bargaining power--in addition to pure economic forces, such as changing relative prices--in shaping market institutions.
Review Quotes: "Jean Ensminger's account of economic transformations among the pastoral Orma of eastern Kenya applies a new theoretical perspective to the study of cultural change. In particular, the book's ethnographic accuracy and theoretical integration are outstanding. I dare say that it will have a major impact on anthropological studies of economic change as it goes far beyond a mere description of what changes, but looks also for explanations of why individual behavior and institutions evolve in one direction and not in another." Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie