His field is the whole history of social and economic transactions.

From 2001 to 2005, the average number of transactions by year is over 630 million.

The value of the transactions was put at $16 billion.

Yet no money changed hands in any of the transactions.

He said this was the case in a significant number of transactions.

Better than nothing, but hours' worth of transactions would be lost.

What does one say, really, at the end of such a transaction?

"I couldn't think of a better transaction for the bank board to do."

On the other side of the transaction, there are at least some success stories.

So you can say that nothing really good has happened as a result of the transaction.