1. Are financial markets embedded in economics rather than society? A critical review of the performativity thesis
- Author:
- Lasse Folke Henriksen
- Publication Date:
- 06-2009
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
- Abstract:
- DIIS Working Paper reviews a recent influential branch within the Social Studies of Finance literature which asserts that financial markets are embedded in economics rather than in society (as scholars of the New Economic Sociology would have it). Coming from actor-network theory, the literature contributes conceptually to an extended ontology of markets and agency and empirically to an improved understanding of the importance of economist's role in constructing markets and assembling economic agency. It also draws attention to the staggering effects that material devices and technical 'details' can potentially have on the macrodynamics of financial markets. In some cases financial markets can even be performed by economics, that is, materialized in very close accordance with the economic models that describe them. From this insight they conclude that economics is a performative science and that the social sciences should consequently break down the Great (analytical) Divide between finance the- ory and financial markets.
- Topic:
- Economics, International Trade and Finance, Markets, and Political Theory
- Political Geography:
- Greece