Beyond Transactions: On the Interpersonal Dimension of Economic Reality

The paper investigates the interpersonal dimension of economic reality—i.e. the reciprocal influences between interpersonal phenomena of a communicative nature and usual economic phenomena. A face‐to‐face interaction, or ‘encounter’, is depicted as a special productive process in which agents—besides exchanging ordinary goods or delivering services—create and simultaneously consume ‘relational goods’. Inputs include ‘relational assets’—;e.g. relation‐specific information, or the social climate of a workshop—;which in turn are affected by encounters. Consideration of relational goods and assets broadens the economists' perspective in several directions.