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.
April 27, 2007
A little meta
Filed under: Daily — Peter @ 9:28 pm
Where I am at the moment with this site: I’ve pretty much set up what I want it to look like, and what is going to go into it.
What’s left is to figure out how to add content with consistency, and what to do with the art site, which is set up differently. Oh yeah, and to add content.
Comments (0)History of Risk
Filed under: Institutional — Peter @ 7:49 pm
Summary: An investigation into the history of risk as an economic concept and the origins of economic risk as part of the institutionalization of futures trading in the latter half of the 19th century US. Conceived with Marc Ventresca, this research shows how risk became a solution to a political (not economic) problem: how to distinguish futures trading from gambling. By using risk and hedging, members of the Chicago Board of Trade were able to make convincing arguments about the social value of futures trading. We use court cases, legislation, and expert discourses in the form of early economics writings about futures trading to show how futures went from being understood as akin to gambling, to being treated like insurance.
Comments (0)Pollution Markets and the EPA
Filed under: Pollution — Peter @ 7:42 pm
Summary: A research project originally conceived in collaboration with Wendy Espeland, looking at the creation of pollution allowances in Title IV of the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments. These allowances have become the demonstration project to show the effectiveness of market-based solutions to environmental problems. We show how the commodity was created, using commensuration as a key concept to demonstrate the process of transforming a social problem into an economic commodity.
As market-based solutions have become increasingly popular, it is worth noting that a) the devil is most certainly in the details of the programs; and that b) these solutions have the effect of transforming environmental politics in addition to changing incentives and costs around environmental pollution.
Comments (0)April 17, 2007
Paper: Information, Prices, and Sensemaking
Filed under: Technology — Peter @ 12:29 pm
Information, Prices, and Sensemaking. I’m trying to make sense of the underlying ontology of price, though I don’t call it that in this particular paper.
Comments (0)Futures Trading, Technology, and Institutional Change
Filed under: Technology — Peter @ 12:24 pm
Summary: A study of the institutional change associated with the shift from open outcry to electronic trading in financial futures. I conducted an in-depth ethnography of a face-to-face trading organization, comparing it to 4 electronic trading firms. My key finding is that what appears to be a technological change in how traders make markets is actually a deep, institutional change in the actors, objects, and activities involved in making markets. Electronic trading changes what counts as information, the expertise of traders, and the relationships between individuals and the market.
Electronic trading is to open outcry what the internet is to the telephone. Not just a more efficient way to do the same thing, but potentially a whole new thing altogether…
Comments (0)April 10, 2007
These are the projects on which I am currently working
Filed under: Front Page — Peter @ 12:21 pm
Futures Trading and Technological Change
Where do Art Prices Come From?
Pollution Markets and the EPA
History of Risk
April 5, 2007
“risk-free” versus very little risk
Filed under: Daily — Peter @ 10:34 pm
In reading Yuval Millo’s “Mechanics of Performativity”, I’m struck once again by the Black-Scholes notion of risk-free portfolios. There is a fundamental assumption, crossing a wide range of financial products (and, even as I’m venturing into the Art markets, economic reasoning there), about the relationship between risk and reward.
Comments (0)This site is hand-woven, and heavily borrows from the wonderful blueprint framwork. Rock on, grids!
Not quite
, but getting there..