The market is filled with books but choosing the appropriate one to read is a difficult task. The book I am reviewing today is pretty different and unfolds some cognitive things that lie within our behaviour. The book ‘Trust in Transactions’ edited by Prasanta Ray and Rukmini Sen consists of scholarly articles written by 12 distinguished personalities in the field of Economics. These articles emphasise on the very need of trust in transactions as it is what keeps us afloat in a world where ‘trust’ has become an issue of severe concern! The articles by Anirban Sengupta and Sharmistha Banerjee (with a co-author) struck me instantly after I read those. A collection of 13 articles on the issue of trust in economic transactions are there in the book and I am sure readers will like these and learn many new things. By readers, I strictly mean the people with an economic background as, being frank, this is a pure scholarly book meant for research scholars from economics background or students of economics.
A Look at the Content:
The book begins with an introduction prepared by the editors, Prasanta Ray and Rukmini Sen. These editors have introduced the readers to the topic very effectively and also highlighted the background for such a book. Moreover, they have also walked the readers through each of the selected papers for the book so that a reader can read any paper if he or she finds that suitable to the needs at hand. This is helpful – indeed! Rukmini Sen’s paper emphasises on the importance of household and the works by a wife within that periphery. The paper by her is interesting as well as important. Likewise, the papers by Ushasi Basu and Nandini Ghosh are very important and qualitatively rich. And all other papers (a few mentioned above) are very aptly driven to their respective conclusions with ample sources backing up the arguments and premises.
The Editors’ Inputs:
Two editors Prasanta Ray and Rukmini Sen have introduced everything about the book in a detailed manner, the purpose, motives and findings are well described in the introduction. It becomes very easy to read the papers after one reads the introduction carefully and in such scholarly books, this is a very challenging practice to introduce the papers selected. The editors have done a fine job there!
Critical Remarks:
Trust is an important part of any transaction because it widens the scope of future prospects. Whenever equilibrium is established between demand and supply with all the economic agents working there, trust is also there because someone has trusted the product and the trusted is also trusting the trusting entity for commercial exchanges.
“Be it behavioural economics, sociology, or Management studies, the contemporary pluri-interdisciplinary interest in the trust is not just because trust or its absence is important for all kinds of relationship that constitute the social framework within which every economy operates.”
Now the market has shifted from a physical place to a virtual place where trust has a major role to play. Most of the companies are preferring outsourcing, people are becoming mobile and love to do online transactions. In this atmosphere, trust has to play an important role in economic transactions and, precisely, the book is timely and it will help the researchers in the long run in the very near future.
The articles in the book have tried to present that scenario in a pretty good way where a reader can understand the worth of the trust in the transaction. To cut short, a worker in the streets or an E-Commerce giant both have to revolve around trust.
You can get a copy of the book from Amazon India and it will certainly be of help if you are from an economics background academically! All the best! Link to buy the book is below:
review by Amit Mishra (MA in Economics, 2015-17, MU – Bodh Gaya, University Topper)
Trust in Transactions
760 Rs
Pros
- Relevant Topic
- Quality Analysis
- Impactful Introduction
Cons
- Limited Readership (not a cons subject per se)
