Although economic sociology emphasizes the role of social networks for shaping economic action, little research has examined how network governance structures affect prices in the unregulated and high-risk social context of online criminal trade. We consider how overembeddedness—a state of excessive interconnectedness among market actors—arises from endogenous trade relations to shape prices in illegal online markets with aggregate consequences for short-term gross illegal revenue. Drawing on transaction-level data on 16 847 illegal drug transactions over 14 months of trade in a ‘darknet’ drug market, we assess how repeated exchanges and closure in buyer–vendor trade networks nonlinearly influence prices and short-term gross revenue from illegal drug trade. Using a series of panel models, we find that increases in closure and repeated exchange raise prices until a threshold is reached upon which prices and gross monthly revenue begin to decline as networks become overembedded. Findings provide insight into the network determinants of prices and gross monthly revenue in illegal online drug trade and illustrate how network structure shapes prices in criminal markets, even in anonymous trade environments.

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非法在线市场中的网络嵌入：匿名犯罪毒品交易中价格和利润的内生来源

尽管经济社会学强调社会网络在塑造经济行为中的作用，但很少有研究探讨网络治理结构如何在网络犯罪交易的不受监管和高风险的社会环境中影响价格。我们考虑过度嵌入（市场参与者之间过度相互关联的状态）是如何由内生贸易关系产生的，从而影响非法在线市场的价格，从而对短期总非法收入产生总体影响。利用“暗网”毒品市场 14 个月内 16 847 起非法毒品交易的交易级数据，我们评估了买卖双方贸易网络中的重复交易和关闭如何非线性地影响非法毒品的价格和短期总收入贸易。使用一系列面板模型，我们发现，随着网络过度嵌入，关闭和重复交易的增加会提高价格，直到达到价格和每月总收入开始下降的阈值。调查结果提供了对非法在线毒品交易中价格和月总收入的网络决定因素的深入了解，并说明了网络结构如何影响犯罪市场的价格，即使在匿名交易环境中也是如此。