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Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly

By , , on February 28, 2015

Afghanistan's hope that market-driven agriculture will ensure its economic transformation demonstrates a wilful disregard of the links between the economic and political marketplaces in the country, and the pervasive rent-seeking practices of informal and formal power holders. This paper, based on a study of the onion markets in Nangarhar, a south-eastern province, reports on how an agricultural commodity market works in practice, and the ways in which social relationships regulate access to it. It is not access to credit and market information that constrains growth, as aid agencies seem to believe, but the practices of a trade elite that largely operates on informal credit and relationships of trust based on close personal networks.

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Pain, Adam, Minoia, GIulia, and Mumtaz, Wamiqullah. Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly. , , . , 2015. Pain, A., Minoia, G., and Mumtaz, W. (2015). Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly. , , . Pain, Adam, Minoia, GIulia, and Mumtaz, Wamiqullah. "Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly." 2015, .Pain Adam, Minoia GIulia, and Mumtaz Wamiqullah. "Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly." (2015). Pain, A, Minoia, G, and Mumtaz, W 2015, 'Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly', , , . Adam Pain, GIulia Minoia, and Wamiqullah Mumtaz, 'Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly' (2015). Pain A., Minoia G., and Mumtaz W. Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly. . 2015. Pain, Adam, Minoia, GIulia, and Mumtaz, Wamiqullah. Peeling the Onion: Social Regulation of the Onion Market, Nangarhar, AfghanistanEconomic and Political Weekly. . 2015. , .

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