A critical comment on Braun's “restricted access in exchange systems"*

I would like to thank James Coleman, Franz Pappi and Norman Braun for helpful discussions.

In general this comment tackles the problems and difficulties potentially combined with an application of formal economic models and constructs, such as the Walras equilibrium and microeconmic demand theory, to pure sociological contexts. In particular, this is done by analyzing a further attempt, as recently suggested by Braun (1993 and 1994), to extend the well‐known Coleman Model by incorporating the embeddedness of social transactions in incomplete social network structures. “Pars pro toto” it is proved that Braun's conceptualization contains some weaknesses which imply that fundamental conclusions drawn in his article have to be revised.

Notes

I would like to thank James Coleman, Franz Pappi and Norman Braun for helpful discussions.