Financial markets also have a structural impact on the governance of social and economic institutions. Until now, sociologists have examined issues of governance mostly with respect to the legal framework of financial transactions. Contributions in this book highlight the ways in which financial markets shape the inner working and structure of corporations and their governance.
Recent years have seen a surge of interest in the workings of financial institutions and financial markets beyond the discipline of economics, which has been accelerated by the financial crisis of the early twenty-first century. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of Finance brings together twenty-nine chapters, written by scholars of international repute from Europe, North America, and Asia, to provide comprehensive coverage on a variety of topics related to the role of finance in a globalized world, and its historical development. Topics include global institutions of modern finance, types of actors involved in financial transactions and supporting technologies, mortgage markets, rating agencies, and the role of financial economics. Particular attention is given to financial crises, which are discussed in a special section, as well as to alternative forms of finance, including Islamic finance and the rise of China. The Handbook will be an indispensable tool for academics, researchers, and students of contemporary finance and economic sociology, and will serve as a reference point for the expanding international community of scholars researching these areas from a broadly-defined sociological perspective.
The Handbook brings together leading international scholars to provide a comprehensive overview of research and theory on the sociology of finance and the workings of financial institutions and financial markets. It will serve as a reference point for this rapidly expanding discipline.
Since the mid-20th century, organizational theorists have increasingly distanced themselves from the study of core societal power centers and important policy issues of the day. This title addresses the global financial crisis debates.
Since the mid-20th century, organizational theorists have increasingly distanced themselves from the study of core societal power centers and important policy issues of the day. This title addresses the global financial crisis debates and struggles around how to organize economies and societies around the world.
As financial markets have assumed an increasing prominence in societies, economic sociology has provided cogent explanations of their effect on our world. This book moves from the analysis of economic exchanges to that of the social institutions which support global markets, highlighting the social and cultural factors shaping them.
Jukka Gronow’s book Deciphering Markets and Money solves the problem of the specific social conditions of an economic order based on money and the equal exchange of commodities. Gronow scrutinizes the relation of sociology to neoclassical economics and reflects on how sociology can contribute to the analyses of the major economic institutions. The question of the comparability and commensuration of economic objects runs through the chapters of the book. The author shows that due to the multidimensionality and principal quality uncertainty of products, markets would collapse without market devices that are either procedural, consisting of technical standards and measuring instruments, or aesthetic, relying on the judgements of taste, or both. In his book, Gronow demonstrates that in this respect, financial markets share the same problem as the markets of wines, movies, or PCs and mobile phones, and hence offer a highly actual case to study their social constitution in the process of coming into being.
Evidences pile up to prove that financial markets are sometimes irrational, and contingently much influenced by public speeches like the ones delivered by central bankers and politicians. Since ideologies and discourses matter in the financial sector, and have very tangible impacts on investors’ decisions worldwide, this book argues that we urgently need a new sociology of finance, one equipped with a critical commitment and an innovative, standardized method for argumentation analysis. Accordingly, the new approach is firstly described theoretically and methodologically, in an open, constructive dialogue with potential complementary approaches like cultural political economy and critical discourse analysis. Then, the outcomes of some empirical analyses are displayed and discussed: from the battles of opposite financial ideologies in the decade 2008-2018, through the analysis of “dovish” speeches in monetary policy, to a case-study focused on Bitcoin’s complex ideology. In this way, Towards A Critical Sociology of Finance promises to equip the reader (and eventually the financial investor) with some critical skills to recognize and doubt financial ideologies and to become sensible to distracting argumentative strategies like buck passing and scapegoats building, as well as to other variously fallacious arguments.
This work builds on the classical sociological contributions of Weber, Simmel, and Toennies, and makes the case for different and alternative ideal-typical models of business relations, which the author calls "English" and "German." The "English" model of business relations is characterized by free competition between firms. They abide by the ethical rules of fair business and the moral economy in market exchanges. Their relations are accordingly based on mutual trust. As a rule, they do not cultivate privileged relations with political authorities. By contrast, the "German" model involves hierarchical relations between a group's major firm and its smaller units. There is no moral community binding together the different groups, and therefore no mutual trust between them. Business groups maintain close relations, based on reciprocal favours, with authorities. The author compares the London and New York Stock Exchanges in the late nineteenth century, finding the former better approximates the "English" model, and shows this model's superior performance. "English" model countries such as Taiwan have been shown to be more competitive in market exchanges than countries such as South Korea, which approximate the "German" model. A new epilogue makes use of more recent information and confirms Segre's arguments.
