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Why does capitalism feel so right? Ethical imaginaries of prison labour and sisterhood solidarity Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Lisa Ann Richey
Humanitarian logics enable the unfree labour of racialized capitalism by making visible the beneficence of those who profit. Understanding the structure of feelings undergirding these imaginaries w...
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Waiting and the gendered boundaries of work among India's poor Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Lucy Dubochet
Poor people in India routinely have to wait for short-term employment, basic services and subsidized goods. Based on fieldwork in Delhi, this paper describes how this waiting blends into an environ...
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Social Impact Bond assetization struggles: A comparative case study of the United Kingdom and Germany Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Lisa Knoll, Alec Fraser
Assetization has become a promising analytical lens in the field of economic sociology and related disciplines. It highlights the creation of reliable income streams for investors instead of compet...
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Liberal fatalism, COVID 19 and the politics of impossibility Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Jana Bacevic, Linsey McGoey
How liberal governments manage knowledge, ignorance, prediction and uncertainty has attracted increased attention across the social sciences. In this paper, we analyse the strategy and rhetoric of ...
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The challenges of assets: Anatomy of an economic form Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-14 Ute Tellmann, Veit Braun, Barbara Brandl
In recent years, the terms ‘asset’, ‘assetization’, ‘asset form’ and ‘asset condition’ have gained prominence. Closely related to established notions of financialization and capitalization, they pr...
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Financialization and assetization: Assets as sites of financial power struggles Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Philipp Golka, Natascha van der Zwan, Arjen van der Heide
Despite significant overlap, scholarship often distinguishes the concepts of financialization and assetization. While there are historical, ontological and conceptual reasons for this distinction, ...
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Understanding generational housing inequalities beyond tenure, class and context Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Amber Howard, Cody Hochstenbach, Richard Ronald
Much of the literature surrounding ‘generation rent’ has been criticized for neglecting socio-economic inequalities, stimulating an emergent body of work addressing intersections between age and cl...
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Venture capital, the fetish of artificial intelligence, and the contradictions of making intangible assets Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 David Kampmann
This paper examines the venture capital-driven process of making intangible assets in platform start-up firms. By examining the case study of the rise and fall of a venture capital-backed ‘unicorn’...
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Life as debt, or debt to life? Water, finance and infrastructure Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Andrea Muehlebach
This paper explores the forms of debt that come into play as public water utilities are privatized and financialized. On the one hand, the financialization of water utilities sets in motion a polit...
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Building walls within walls: Making value defensible in Public Private Partnerships Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Chris Hurl, Alia Nurmohamed
Despite widespread criticisms, governments around the world have adopted Value for Money (VfM) analysis as a key metric in gauging the prospective value of infrastructure projects. This paper exami...
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Export taxes in Argentina: Embedded ideas of state interventionism Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Matt Barlow
This paper argues that ideas about tax matter as much as interests and institutions for understanding social attitudes and responses to attempts by the state to raise revenues for development agend...
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Economizing chemical compounds: The production of qualities in Turkish olive oil Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Brian Silverstein
Producers in many sectors, including food, are seeking to convert chemical compounds into value. Turkey is in the midst of a ‘quality turn’ in its olive oil sector, as producers seek ways to captur...
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The social meaning of wealth taxes Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Liam Stanley, Tom McGrath, Tom Hunt
Wealth taxes are back on the political agenda of developed democracies, but are subject to contestation. Given increasing inequality, middle classes may support wealth taxes so to redistribute weal...
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The ‘government of men’: Moving beyond Foucault’s binaries Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Maurizio Meloni, Galib Bashirov
Recent controversies surrounding Michel Foucault suggest tensions and unresolved issues in his unfinished work. Here we interrogate Foucault’s legacy in relation to his claim that the welfare-state...
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Assetization as a mode of techno-economic governance: Knowledge, education and personal data in the UN's System of National Accounts Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Kean Birch
Assets are made through the configuration of technoscientific and political-economic (or techno-economic) relations, claims and practices; a process increasingly conceptualized as ‘assetization’. T...
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Turning investments green in bond markets: Qualification, devices and morality Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Sarah Bracking, Maud Borie, Glenn Sim, Theo Temple
This paper explores the issuance and growth of transition and sustainability-linked bonds into the green market segment normally reserved for green bonds between 2018 and 2021. Using a performative...
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Beds for rent Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Tim White
Housing has long been the quintessential rentier asset. But under financialized capitalism its enrolment into accumulation dynamics has greatly intensified. As investors increasingly turn to reside...
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Purity and dangers: Market making, structural uncertainty, and circuits of exchange in the cryptoeconomy Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Alex Preda, Ruowen Xu, Julie Valk
Market making is a crucial activity in financial markets, expected to reduce uncertainties related to price and liquidity information, and to enable strategic interactions among traders. Sociologis...
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Global environmental accounting and the remaking of the economy-environment boundary Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-09-05 Christopher Holmes, David Yarrow
This paper analyses the rise of environmental accounting in global governance via a case study of the UN System of Environmental-Economic Accounting. We draw on recent literature that highlights th...
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The longest second: Header bidding and the material politics of online advertising Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-08-23 Donald MacKenzie, Koray Caliskan, Charlotte Rommerskirchen
A user’s online action is often followed, around a second later, by ads being shown to her/him. Much happens in that second, including near-instantaneous auctions (sometimes coordinated by the user...
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‘To assign people their place in society’: School grades and the quantification of merit Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-07-11 Noëlle Rohde
The political ideal of meritocracy has increasingly come under attack, but continues to figure centrally in the national identity of many self-declared liberal democracies, including Germany. A que...
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Contested values: Economic expertise in the comparable worth controversy, USA, 1979–1989 Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Cléo Chassonnery-Zaïgouche
The comparable worth principle – a call for a general readjustment of wages according to a measure of the worth of an occupation – gained policy momentum in the United States in the early 1980s. A ...
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Expectations, competencies and domain knowledge in data- and machine-driven finance Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-06-19 Kristian Bondo Hansen, Daniel Souleles
Expectations about the economy and financial markets are often cast as figments of imaginaries of the future. While the sociology of finance have predominantly dealt with expectation formation in r...
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Bloomberg and the GameStop saga: The fear of stock market democracy Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-05-03 Tom Duterme
The GameStop saga aroused the emotion and indignation of a large part of the financial community. This paper accounts for this reaction by exposing the conflict of expertise at the heart of the sag...
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Public, libre, commons: On the logics, logistics and locations of democratic participation in the digital age Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-04-06 Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Daniel Curto-Millet
Abstract This paper tells the story of Decide Madrid (Decide), a civic tech platform designed by Madrid’s municipality in 2015 in the spirit of the autonomous and hacker philosophies that spearheaded the Spanish Occupy or 15M movement. We develop a biographical account of Decide to show how the design of the platform was modified over the course of four years to accommodate shifting ideas of how digital
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‘The mystery of Dublin’: Corporate profit-shifting and housing crisis in twenty-first century Ireland Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-04-06 Martyn Egan
Ireland’s economy is currently characterized by two phenomena: a highly globalized growth regime predicated on multinational corporate profit-shifting, and a domestic economy (concentrated in the c...
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In trust we share: The politics of financial intelligence sharing Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-03-22 Pieter Lagerwaard, Marieke de Goede
Abstract Financial transactions data are increasingly considered valuable in the context of security threats, yet they are particularly privacy sensitive. At present, 166 Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) worldwide are able to share financial intelligence via the Egmont Group, their joint platform. This paper analyses the politics and practices of transnational financial intelligence sharing, with
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Social prescribing and the search for value in health care Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-03-15 Mark D. Fleming
Abstract Health care systems throughout the United States are developing programmes to address patients’ ‘social determinants of health’ – such as housing, food, income and transportation. I investigate the concepts, technologies and infrastructures through which health care systems are turning towards ‘the social’ as an object of clinical knowledge and intervention. Proponents of this movement suggest
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Active fund managers and the rise of passive investing: Epistemic opportunism in financial markets Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-03-13 Yuval Millo, Crawford Spence, James J. Valentine
Abstract Financial markets have witnessed a dramatic shift in financial flows in recent years from Active fund management where professional investors attempt to beat the market (generate ‘alpha’) to Passive investment where portfolios are assembled that follow existing market indicators (track ‘beta’). This transition has important implications for both corporate governance and wider society, with
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Labour market dualization, permanent insecurity and fertility: The case of ultra-low fertility in South Korea Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-03-09 Timo Fleckenstein, Soohyun Christine Lee, Samuel Mohun Himmelweit
Abstract This paper explores the relationship between labour market dualization, insecurity and low fertility, through a case study of South Korea, an extreme case of ultra-low fertility where the total fertility rate fell to 0.84 in 2020. It is argued that the long-term nature of the insecurity associated with dualization, as well as its impact on people’s perceptions of present and future insecurity
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Making UBI radical: On the potential for a universal basic income to underwrite transformative and anti-kyriarchal change Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-03-06 Mary Lawhon, Tyler McCreary
Abstract Cash transfers as a response to poverty and unemployment have moved to mainstream political practice. From global south developmental policy to pandemic payments, there is growing concern with relying on employment for income. Many on the left have been sceptical of, and at times opposed to, such transfers, instead urging direct state provisioning, improved employment, or economic transformation
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Bypassing the animal: Plant-based meat and the communicative constitution of a moral market Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-02-13 Mathieu Chaput, Alexander Paulsson
Abstract The food industry occupies a large portion of the plate in the study of moral markets. Moral markets for food include fair trade goods, organic products, family farmers initiatives, as well as plant-based meat alternatives, the focus of this paper. Driven by a growing concern for animal welfare, sustainability and the responsible use of resources, various companies launched products that successfully
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Nigel Dodd: An appreciation Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2023-01-19 Paul Langley, Samantha Ashenden, Andrew Barry, Laura Bear, Ann Kelly, Linsey J. McGoey, Maxine Molyneux, Daniel Neyland, Bronwyn Parry, Fran Tonkiss, Gisa Weszkalnys
Abstract Professor Nigel Dodd was a long-standing and much-loved member of the Editorial Board of Economy and Society. He sadly passed away in August 2022. In this short piece, we express our heartfelt gratitude for Nigel’s contributions to the journal and briefly introduce a virtual collection of four papers assembled to register our appreciation. The papers are free to access from the Collections
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The allure of finance: Social impact investing and the challenges of assetization in financialized capitalism Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Philipp Golka
Abstract Scholarship in sociology and political economy is increasingly engaging with assetization: how objects are turned into return-bearing assets. Although assetization rests on power, it cannot be fully explained by it. This paper addresses this puzzle and argues that financial agency involves creating the social conditions for the exercise of financial power. To this end, the paper draws on an
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The dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-11-28 Paul Dylan-Ennis, Donncha Kavanagh, Luis Araujo
Abstract This paper inquires into the dynamic imaginaries of the Ethereum project. We present Ethereum as animated by three such imaginaries: the world computer (technical), productive money (economic) and public goods (political). We examine how these imaginaries are materialized, carried forward and evolve through the Ethereum ecosystem, focusing on how Ethereum’s prefigurative logic underpins this
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The expansionary strategies of intellectual monopolies: Google and the digitalization of healthcare Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-11-16 Cecilia Rikap
Abstract As big tech companies are entering new industrial sectors, an open question concerns the drivers of their expansionary strategies. This paper proposes that these companies are currently entering sectors based on their data-driven intellectual monopoly power, thereby complementing the preliminary answer provided by political economy research which has argued that expansion is driven by their
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Of men and markets: Hayek, masculinity and neoliberalism Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-11-11 Steve Garlick
Abstract A key aspect of Friedrich von Hayek’s thought is the importance he places on the concept of complexity and the way that it limits human capacities for knowledge and control. Interrogating the intersection of complexity, neoliberal theory and systems of gender relations, this paper examines the place of masculinity in Hayek’s work. Reading against the grain of Hayek’s texts, I draw out the
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Dependence on independence: Central bank lawyers and the (un)making of the European economy Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-26 Stephanie L. Mudge, Antoine Vauchez
Abstract We analyse the trajectory of independence in the formation of the European Central Bank (ECB), conceptualized as a boundary organization that, by delineating the European economy, contributes to a supranational state effect. Success in the effort, however, requires the ECB to constantly assert a separate and special status, despite its embeddedness in multiple fields. Focusing on the European
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Exchanging expectations: Abenomics and the politics of finance in post-Fukushima Japan Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-25 Hirokazu Miyazaki, Annelise Riles
Abstract Social scientists have recently shown how markets are discursively constructed and have documented the role of central banks in these constructions. Although framed as a critique of the neoclassical economic view, this approach still operates within a narrow vision of the world as divided into distinct political, social and economic spheres. Our goal in this paper is to replace this view with
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Narrating imagined crises: How central bank storytelling exerts infrastructural power Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-25 Nathan Coombs
Abstract While a rich literature has examined how central banks mobilize narratives to enrol publics in monetary policymaking, the effects of the narratives deployed in banking supervision remain neglected. Drawing on 21 expert interviews, this paper fills that lacuna through a study of stress testing, a technique that became a fixture of international banking supervision after the 2008 crisis and
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Uncomfortable knowledge in central banking: Economic expertise confronts the visibility dilemma Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-21 Jacqueline Best
Abstract How do central bankers cope with the uncomfortable fact that there are significant limits to their expertise without losing authority? Drawing on Steve Rayner’s concept of ‘uncomfortable knowledge’, this paper undertakes a historical examination of the early years of Paul Volcker’s role at the head of the Federal Reserve, and then traces the ways in which the uncomfortable fact of ignorance
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Growth at risk: Boundary walkers, stylized facts and the legitimacy of countercyclical interventions Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-21 Matthias Thiemann
Abstract Post-crisis, central banks were encouraged to intervene against the cyclical build up of systemic risks in the financial system, a mandate which contravened previous conceptions of the state-economy boundary. This paper traces how central bank economists forged an analytical apparatus that could guide and legitimize such central bank interventions, detailing how their work involved forging
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Independence without purpose? Macroprudential regulation at the Bundesbank Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-21 Edin Ibrocevic
Abstract It is commonly assumed that state agencies legitimize themselves via outputs. This paper shows that in situations of organizational crisis, state agencies may adopt new policy areas symbolically to compensate for lost legitimacy. Drawing on an ethnography within the Bundesbank, internal documents, and insider interviews, I trace how the German Bundesbank adopted financial stability as a policy
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Recentering central banks: Theorizing state-economy boundaries as central bank effects Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-08 Nathan Coombs, Matthias Thiemann
Abstract This special issue argues that to make sense of the increased prominence of central banks after the 2008 financial crisis and COVID-19 pandemic requires interrogating the sources of and limits to their governmental power. In a time in which the ‘big state’ has returned alongside new forms of financial speculation, the theoretical claim advanced by this introductory paper is that the state
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Building walls to tame time: Enclaves and the enduring power of failure Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-10-03 Jason Sumich
Abstract In this paper, I explore the ways in which the construction of enclaves became central to utopian attempts of social engineering and how their legacies shape contemporary society despite the failures of these projects. By focusing on the role of enclaving, in Maputo, the capital of Mozambique, I demonstrate how it derives its power as a walled remnant of the resuscitation of past utopian goals
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Clouded futures: Economic barometers and the making of the unpredictable economy Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-08-08 Stefan Schwarzkopf
Abstract Much of what passes as economic knowledge is metaphorical in nature. This study focuses in particular on the meteorological origins of economic metaphors. Once markets became imagined in terms of atmospheric phenomena, economists and financial services providers began to construct instruments, especially forecasting models, which resembled those used in meteorology. These tools allowed them
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More-than-national and less-than-global: The biochemical infrastructure of vaccine manufacturing Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-08-01 Nele Jensen, Andrew Barry, Ann H. Kelly
Abstract The recent efforts to mount an R&D response to public health emergencies of international concern have led to the formation of what we term a biochemical infrastructure of vaccine development and production. In principle, this infrastructure is expected not only to curtail existing pandemics but also anticipate and contain yet-to-emerge future threats. Critically, by nature of its geographical
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City of standards: London and the rise of LIBOR in global finance Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-26 Devin Wiggs
Abstract The rise of global finance in the latter twentieth century was an epochal transformation in the history of capitalism and new socio-technical devices emerged to value these innovations, among the most significant being the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). Today, LIBOR values over $200 trillion in global financial markets despite the repeated attempts by international regulators to repeal
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‘Hodling’ on: Memetic storytelling and digital folklore within a cryptocurrency world Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-07-22 Yathukulan Yogarajah
Abstract People within the cryptocurrency world come together on imageboards and forums to tell stories about the highly volatile and uncertain world they inhabit. Although they engage with a highly technical digital money form, the stories they share online could be more productively analysed as digital folklore. Through ethnography primarily conducted via 4chan and Reddit, I highlight three types
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State financialization: Permanent austerity, financialized real estate and the politics of public assets in Italy Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-06-24 Félix Adisson, Ludovic Halbert
Abstract Inspired by Streeck’s consolidation state theory, this paper develops a theoretical framework of the restructuring of the state in late-stage financialized capitalism. It observes how in Italy, an emblematic consolidation state, the use of public real estate investment funds supports assetization, that is how state properties are gradually transformed into financial assets via multilevel and
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Living, not just surviving: The politics of refusing low-wage jobs in urban South Africa Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 Hannah J. Dawson
Abstract This paper explores why young Black South African men refuse low-wage jobs in a time of mass joblessness. Drawing on in-depth qualitative data from an informal settlement on the outskirts of Johannesburg, the paper examines the work histories and social aspirations that underpin young men’s decision to voluntarily quit low-wage employment. This inquiry is animated by a long history of urban
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Machine learning and social action in markets: From first- to second-generation automated trading Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-05-04 Christian Borch, Bo Hee Min
Abstract Machine learning (ML) models are gaining traction in securities trading because of their ability to recognize and predict patterns. This study examines how ML is transforming automated trading. Drawing on 213 interviews with market participants (including 94 with people working at ML-employing firms) as well as ethnographic observations of a trading firm specializing in ML-based automated
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Venture capitalists in miniature? Deregulation and equity crowdfunding in the United States Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-26 Jacob Hellman
Abstract Financialization proceeds, in part, through increasing popular participation. Does this process ever encounter internal limits? This paper considers a project to popularize angel investing in the United States by deregulating it and bringing it online. Scholars have detailed the devices and processes by which non-professionals have come to participate in public stock markets. In comparison
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Financial superstitions: Hawala accusations and boundary-making in Kashmir Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Aditi Saraf
Abstract Trust-based informal credit forms an important basis for capital and commodity circulation in the bazaars of South Asia, comprising promissory payments settled according to vernacular timelines and practices. These systems are also regarded with acute suspicion outside their networks of circulation. In Indian-administered Kashmir, this suspicion acquires another layer due to associations of
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Money for everything? Universal basic income in a crisis Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-18 Matthew Thompson
Abstract This paper explores universal basic income (UBI) in relation to crisis, from COVID-19 to techno-economic disruptions to work and prospective post-capitalist transition. Critical debates around automation, wage labour and post-work are brought into conversation with emerging trends in urban political economy around foundational infrastructure, smart cities and platform capitalism. To deliver
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Carbon capital: The lexicon and allegories of US hydrocarbon finance Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Sean Field
Abstract Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork with energy financiers in Houston, Texas, this paper explores how experts use a lexicon of models and metrics to conceptualize and construct allegories about future hydrocarbon projects and companies. I show that allegorical narratives built with this lexicon advance a kind of energy ethics – distinguishing what is good and advocating for particular hydrocarbon
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Global health, accelerated: Rapid diagnostics and the fragile solidarities of ‘emergency R&D’ Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Ann H. Kelly, Javier Lezaun, Alice Street
Abstract A new paradigm of emergency R&D has transformed global health. Beginning with the 2014–2016 Ebola virus disease epidemic in West Africa, experimental product development has been propelled to the frontlines of outbreak response, radically compressing timelines and unsettling regulatory standards, biosecurity strategies and humanitarian protocols. This paper examines these emerging epistemic
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Elinor Ostrom and public health Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-02-18 Pablo Paniagua
Abstract Social scientists often assume that complex externalities, such as pandemics, should be governed through a Pigouvian approach that deems top-down coercion and restrictions sufficient to govern externalities. Yet, the production of public health requires citizens to actively adopt precautionary and cooperative measures. Moreover, as Elinor Ostrom’s work on global warming suggests, externalities
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Housing and economic inequality in the long run: The retreat of owner occupation Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2022-01-27 Susan J. Smith, William A. V. Clark, Rachel Ong ViforJ, Gavin A. Wood, William Lisowski, N. T. Khuong Truong
Abstract Finally, after a lengthy hiatus, the empirical facts of economic inequality need no introduction. In a blaze of publicity during a decade or more, the re-polarization of income and wealth across nearly half a century has been widely documented and is substantially uncontested. There is debate on whether incomes have peaked, no doubt that capital is back, and a great deal of speculation on
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Spoofing: Law, materiality and boundary work in futures trading Economy and Society (IF 4.182) Pub Date : 2021-11-30 Donald MacKenzie
Abstract Spoofing (canonically: ‘bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution’), once a valued skill in face-to-face trading, has become a crime punishable by jail. Echoing Riles’s call for greater attention to law in research on finance, this paper analyses the interwoven processes of this dramatic shift, including trading’s changing material form, contingencies