Peter Levin’s Rethinking Markets

Maligne Lake
Academic Identity

I am assistant professor of Sociology at Barnard College. My book (and my dissertation research) is a comparative study of technology and futures trading, an ethnography of open outcry and electronic traders. My current research is on how art specialists price cultural commodities, particularly how categories and commensuration work in the secondary/resale fine arts market. I teach courses in economic sociology, organizations, and gender.

Professional Identity

I occasionally consult, focusing on organizational change, the future of technology and financial markets, and environmental markets. I do strategic assessments of markets, technology and organizational design, with qualitative and quantitative components. If you are interested, please email me.

Personal Identity

I grew up outside Chicago, and went to school(s) at Wesleyan University, USC, and Northwestern University. I currently live in New York, with a partner who is a marketing manager for an educational nonprofit. I love movies, like to cook, and I can do a mean lindy swing out. I am INTP.

September 19, 2006

Price Ontology versus Price Determination

Filed under: Art — Peter @ 12:11 pm

I’ve been thinking a lot about our research question, and it seems to me that a useful (re)start may be the difference between the ontology of prices and the determination of prices. Ontology normally refers to the study of conceptions of reality. The ontology of price would be an explicit specification of that conceptualization (Gruber 1993: 199). The idea is that we would be trying to understand what price is - how is it made understandable. This is a bit challenging because when we look especially at secondary markets for Art, it is taken for granted that prices already exist. Auctions, as we’ll read Charles Smith’s account of them, are actually designed to help determine prices when there is uncertainty over how much something is worth. But this says less about what makes price itself knowable.

The ontology of prices would look at the shift between a work of Art being price-less and being price-able. This is what I had in mind when we started the semester.

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CV, Resume, or what I do in a nutshell

CV - academic (.pdf)
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