The paper studies the Palanpuri community and concludes “the Indian dealers could make use of their kinship relationships to other family members who engage in the diamond trade as well. As their relationships are not open to outsiders and as the Palanpuris make up a close-knit community, the information delivered through their external pipelines stay within their closed networks and are not passed on to third parties. In other words, there is no interaction between the local buzz within the overall cluster and the global pipelines of the Palanpuri com-munity. As a consequence, no cluster actors but the Palanpuris were able to use their knowledge to develop a completely new segment of diamonds and – by learning effects – thereby allowing the Palanpuris to bind a growing segment of diamonds which were manufactured under the control of their relatives in India. In the course of time, this development heavily contributed to the fact that the manufacturing base in Antwerp which had been weakened by an interruption during World War II gradually faded away.”

The paper, which is part of a larger and yet to be published study, is in the process of being finalized. A copy of the working paper is available for download at http://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/22686.html. The author has invited comments from community members. He can be contacted at

Dr. Sebastian Henn
Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
Institute for Geosciences
Department of Economic Geography
Von-Seckendorff-Platz 4
06120 Halle (Saale)
E-Mail: Sebastian.henn@geo.uni-halle.de
Phone: +49-345-5526012