Ken Chen
Sessions
Drawing on insights from sociology and new institutional economics, Extralegal Governance provides the first comprehensive account of China's illegal markets by applying a socio-economic approach. It considers social legitimacy and state repression in examining the nature of illegal markets. It examines how power dynamics and varying levels of punishment shape exchange relationships between buyers and sellers. It identifies context-specific risks and explains how private individuals and organizations address these risks by developing extralegal governance institutions to facilitate social cooperation across various illegal markets. Adopting a multiple-case study design to sample China's illegal markets, this book utilizes four cases - street vending, small-property-rights housing, corrupt exchanges, and online loan sharks - to examine how market participants foster cooperation and social order in illegal markets.
How does the illegal stablecoin market operate in Mainland China?
Based on 30 semi-structured interviews, this study examines the
mechanism of the stablecoin market in China, focusing on the
transaction behaviors of retail investors and OTC brokers. The
stablecoin market in China manifests in three scenarios: online
exchanges, including C2C (customer to customer) trades, semi-C2C
trades and off-platform trades. This study explores the risks faced by
Chinese participants in the stablecoin market and how they manage
these transaction risks without state protection. This research provides
empirical insights into a non-Western illegal market, enriching
criminology literature in this field.
Keywords: cryptocurrency, stablecoins, illegal market, risk, credible
commitment, trust