Allison Schrager, Columnist

Lab-Grown Diamonds Are Testing the Power of Markets

Almost everything in the economy whose value is predicated on scarcity is now abundant.

August 11, 2025 at 11:00 AM UTC

Allison Schrager is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering economics. A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, she is author of “An Economist Walks Into a Brothel: And Other Unexpected Places to Understand Risk.”

More beautiful than the market itself? — More beautiful than the market itself?
Photographer: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images North America

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I love markets. I also love diamonds. This helps explain why I am experiencing a kind of existential crisis: The popularity of lab-grown diamonds is making me question the beauty of markets, which is their ability to place a value on pretty much anything.

And it is not just diamonds. Everything in the economy whose value is predicated on scarcity is suddenly abundant: luxury handbags, music, even currency itself. Why is anything worth anything anymore?