Do Economists Make Markets? On the Performativity of Economics / Donald MacKenzie, Fabian Muniesa, Lucia Siu.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Siu, Lucia, Editor.

Muniesa, Fabian, Editor.

Mackenzie, Donald, Editor.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Markets.

Economics.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (vi, 373 pages) : illustrations

Place of Publication:

Princeton, New Jersey ; Oxford : Princeton University Press, [2007]

Language Note:

In English.

System Details:

Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Summary:

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 "as 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 Lepinay, and Timothy Mitchell.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

List of Illustrations, Boxes, and Tables

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. The Social Construction of a Perfect Market: The Strawberry Auction at Fontaines-en-Sologne

Chapter 3. Is Economics Performative? Option Theory and the Construction of Derivatives Markets

Chapter 4. Decoding Finance: Articulation and Liquidity around a Trading Room

Chapter 5. How to Do Things with Experimental Economics

Chapter 6. Economic Experiments and the Construction of Markets

Chapter 7. Markets Made Flesh: Performativity, and a Problem in Science Studies, Augmented with Consideration of the FCC Auctions

Chapter 8. Which Way Is Up on Callon?

Chapter 9. The Properties of Markets

Chapter 10. Do Statistics "Perform" the Economy?

Chapter 11. What Does It Mean to Say That Economics Is Performative?

List of Contributors

Index

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780691138497

0691138494

9780691214665

0691214662

OCLC:

1191864271