The Worth of Goods: Valuation and Pricing in the Economy
Jens Beckert, Patrik Aspers (eds.)
MPIfG Book
Abstract
How do we place value on goods – and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable.
Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense – moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values – discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical consumption, and imaginative value. The second part discusses the issues surrounding valuation in aesthetic markets, specifically wine, fashion models, art, and the creative industries. The third part analyzes valuation in financial markets – credit rating agencies, stock exchange markets, and industrial production.
This pioneering volume brings together leading social scientists to provide a range of theoretical tools and case studies for understanding price and the creation of value in markets within social and cultural contexts and preconditions. It is an important source for scholars in economics, sociology, anthropology, and political science interested in how markets work, and how value is established.
Readership: Academics, researchers, and advanced students in Business and Management, Sociology, Economics, and Marketing.
Contents
Introduction
1 Value in Markets
Patrik Aspers and Jens Beckert
Part I What is Valuable?
2 Price and Prejudice: On Economics and the Enchantment (and Disenchantment) of Nature
Marion Fourcade
3 What Is the Price of a Scientific Paper?
Lucien Karpik
4 The Value of Ethics: Monitoring Normative Compliance in Ethical Consumption Markets
Peter Gourevitch
5 The Transcending Power of Goods: Imaginative Value in the Economy
Jens Beckert
Part II Aesthetic Markets
6 Symbolic Value and the Establishment of Prices: Globalization of the Wine Market
Marie-France Garcia-Parpet
7 Pricing Looks: Circuits of Value in Fashion Modeling Markets
Ashley Mears
8 Damien's Dangerous Idea: Valuing Contemporary Art at Auction
Olav Velthuis
9 Infinite Surprises: On the Stabilization of Value in the Creative Industries
Michael Hutter
Part III Financial Markets
10 Forecasting as Valuation: The Role of Ratings and Predictions in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis in the United States
Akos Rona-Tas and Stefanie Hiss
11 Selling Value in Kenya's Nairobi Stock Exchange
Christopher Yenkey
12 Coping with Contingencies in Equity Option Markets: The "Rationality" of Pricing
Charles W. Smith
Part IV Organizations
13 Valuing Products as Cultural Symbols: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Illustration
Davide Ravasi, Violina Rindova, and Ileana Stigliani
Postscript
14 What's Valuable?
David Stark