Princeton University Press
Do Economists Make Markets?: On the Performativity of Economics
Key Metrics
- Donald MacKenzie
- Princeton University Press
- Paperback
- 9780691138497
- 8.9 X 6.28 X 0.87 inches
- 1.22 pounds
- Business & Economics > Commerce
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
Around the globe, economists affect markets by saying what markets are doing, what they should do, and what they will do. Increasingly, experimental economists are even designing real-world markets. But, despite these facts, economists are still largely thought of as scientists who merely observe markets from the outside, like astronomers look at the stars. Do Economists Make Markets? boldly challenges this view. It is the first book dedicated to the controversial question of whether economics is performative--of whether, in some cases, economics actually produces the phenomena it analyzes.
The book's case studies--including financial derivatives markets, telecommunications-frequency auctions, and individual transferable quotas in fisheries--give substance to the notion of the performativity of economics in an accessible, nontechnical way. Some chapters defend the notion; others attack it vigorously. The book ends with an extended chapter in which Michel Callon, the idea's main formulator, reflects upon the debate and asks what it means to say economics is performative.
The book's insights and strong claims about the ways economics is entangled with the markets it studies should interest--and provoke--economic sociologists, economists, and other social scientists.
In addition to the editors and Callon, the contributors include Marie-France Garcia-Parpet, Francesco Guala, Emmanuel Didier, Philip Mirowski, Edward Nik-Khah, Petter Holm, Vincent-Antonin L�pinay, and Timothy Mitchell.
Author Bio
I'm a sociologist of science and technology, and my research aims to throw new light on their role in shaping the modern world. I work on topics such as how financial-market participants use mathematical models, how nuclear weapons systems are designed, and how those involved try to produce high-confidence knowledge of the safety and security of computer systems.
Currently, I'm researching two topics: automated 'high-frequency trading' (HFT project), and AdTech, the technical/economic systems of online advertising (AdTech project).
My book on HFT, Trading at the Speed of Light: How Ultrafast Algorithms Are Transforming Financial Markets (also available as audiobook), was published by Princeton University Press in May; read an early review by Diane Coyle.
Previous books include Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance (MIT Press, 1990); An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets (MIT Press, 2006); and Chains of Finance: How Investment Management is Shaped (Oxford University Press, 2017), jointly written with Diane-Laure Arjaliès, Philip Grant, Iain Hardie and Ekaterina Svetlova.
Source: The University of Edinburgh
Videos
No Videos
Community reviews
Write a ReviewNo Community reviews