Economists have viewed markets traditionally as interpersonal vacuums in which buyers and sell- ers are unknown to each other in any role other than that dictated by the market (Ben-Porath 1980). Al- though this stark view has proved powerful for esti- mating equilibrium quantities and prices, this article argues that preexisting social ties between buyers and sellers modify the operation of markets and that by studying the impact of these ties, our knowledge of how markets work can be improved. We refer to markets in which social relations alter market operations as "embedded." Marsden and Laumann (1977) investigated political influence as a market with no formal currency of exchange, such as cash, and found that personal trust was used to facili- tate exchanges. They concluded that social relation- ships, typically regarded as latent factors, can act as guarantors of trust and be integral to the operation of markets, even markets that have formal currencies of exchange. According to Marsden and Laumann, "supra-individual social structures" introduce restric- tions on market exchange processes, raising the possi- bility that embedded consumer markets operate in unusual ways and that purchasing behavior in these markets may be altered in an empirically discernable fashion (cf. Granovetter 1985).