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.

April 27, 2007

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.

Leave a Reply

Comments will be sent to the moderation queue.

Documents, Links, and Hijinks

Donate to my Donor Challenge

It's for DonorsChoose, and it would make me happy. More here. Do it for the children!


CV, Resume, or what I do in a nutshell

CV - academic (.pdf)
Resume - Professional (.pdf)

Volunteer or give, it will make you feel better


DonorsChoose.org. This is where my partner works. It is an educational nonprofit devoted to obtaining resources for underfunded public schools.
VolunteerMatch. VM is a first stop for volunteering. You can plug in your interests, your zip code, and it will return things to do for a week, a week, or a lifetime.
Idealist.org. More than a place to volunteer, Idealist is probably the number one place my students go for career work. It is a kind of warehouse for nonprofit jobs, internships, volunteering, and the like.
Kaboom! Kaboom builds playgrounds in areas where they are needed and supported by the community. You can participate in a one-day build (though the interface kinda stinks), and they could use your money as well.
Partners in Health. This organization is just making the world better and healthier by attending to HIV and tuberculosis patients in the most impoverished places in the world. More here.

This site is hand-woven, and heavily borrows from the wonderful blueprint framwork. Rock on, grids!

Not quite Valid HTML 4.01 Strict, but getting there..