Stories of capitalism : inside the role of financial analysts / Stefan Leins.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Leins, Stefan, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Financial services industry--Employees.

Financial services industry.

Finance--Social aspects.

Finance.

Investment banking--Social aspects--Switzerland.

Investment banking.

Banks and banking--Switzerland.

Banks and banking.

Business anthropology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2018.

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

The financial crisis and the recession that followed caught many people off guard, including experts in the financial sector whose jobs involve predicting market fluctuations. Financial analysis offices in most international banks are supposed to forecast the rise or fall of stock prices, the success or failure of investment products, and even the growth or decline of entire national economies. And yet their predictions are heavily disputed. How do they make their forecasts-and do those forecasts have any actual value? Building on recent developments in the social studies of finance, Stories of Capitalism provides the first ethnography of financial analysis. Drawing on two years of fieldwork in a Swiss bank, Stefan Leins argues that financial analysts construct stories of possible economic futures, presenting them as coherent and grounded in expert research and analysis. In so doing, they establish a role for themselves-not necessarily by laying bare empirically verifiable trends but rather by presenting the market as something that makes sense and is worth investing in. Stories of Capitalism is a nuanced look at how banks continue to boost investment-even in unstable markets-and a rare insider's look into the often opaque financial practices that shape the global economy.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Acknowledgments

1. Meeting the Predictors

2. The Problem with Forecasting in Economic Theory

3. Inside Swiss Banking

4. Among Financial Analysts

5. Intrinsic Value, Market Value, and the Search for Information

6. The Construction of an Investment Narrative

7. The Politics of Circulating Narratives

8. Analysts as Animators

9. Why the Economy Needs Narratives

Methodological Appendix

Notes

References

Index

Notes:

Previously issued in print: 2018.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 https://www.degruyter.com/dg/page/open-access-policy

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 22. Okt 2019)

Description based on print record.

ISBN:

9780226523569

022652356X

OCLC:

1016156747