The Worth of Goods

• Interdisciplinary contributions from sociology, economics, political science, and marketing
• Presents empirical studies of both financial and some unusual markets - wine, art, fashion
• Pioneering work at intersection of sociology, economics, and marketing
• Chapters by leading international scholars in economic sociology
• Revisits both established theories of value and current thinking

Readership: Academics, researchers, and advanced students in Business and Management, Sociology, Economics, and Marketing

Edited by Jens Beckert, Director, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne, and Patrik Aspers, Professor, Department of Sociology, Stockholm University and Swedish School of Textiles

Jens Beckert is Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne and Professor of Sociology at the University of Cologne. He has held visiting positions at Princeton University, Harvard University, Cornell University, the European University Institute, and Sciences Po in Paris. The main focus of his research is economic sociology with a special emphasis on markets, organization studies, the sociology of inheritance and social theory. He is the author of Beyond the Market: the Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency (Princeton University Press 2002) and Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press 2008). His articles have been published in journals such as Theory & Society, Sociological Theory, Organization Studies, and the European Journal of Sociology.

Patrik Aspers holds a PhD in Sociology from Stockholm University (2001). He has been resident at institutions such as Harvard University, Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He has chaired the economic sociology research network of the European Sociological Association, and is President of the Swedish Sociological Association. The main focus of his research is on economic sociology, especially markets. He has published two books on markets: Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological Approach (2nd. ed. Routledge 2006) and Orderly Fashion: A Sociology of Markets (Princeton University Press 2010). Aspers has written on classical economists such as Alfred Marshall and Vilfredo Pareto, and published in journals such as the Journal of Economic Geography and Theory and Society.

1: Patrik Aspers and Jens Beckert: Value in Markets
Section I: What is Valuable?
2: Marion Fourcade: Price and Prejudice: On Economics and the Enchantment (or Disenchantment) of Nature
3: Lucien Karpik: What is the Price of a Scientific Paper?
4: Peter Gourevitch: The Value of Ethics: Monitoring Normative Compliance in Ethical Consumption Markets
5: Jens Beckert: The Transcending Power of Goods: Imaginative Value in the Economy
Section II: Aesthetic Markets
6: Marie-France Garcia-Parpet: Symbolic Value and the Establishment of Prices: Globalization of the Wine Market
7: Ashley Mears: Pricing Looks: Circuits of Value in Fashion Modeling Markets
8: Olav Velthuis: Damien's Dangerous Idea: Selling Contemporary Art at Auction
9: Michael Hutter: Infinite Surprises: On the Stabilization of Value in the Creative Industries
Section III: Financial Markets
10: Akos Rona-Tas and Stefanie Hiss: Forecasting as Valuation: The Role of Ratings and Predictions in the Subprime Mortgage Crisis in the US
11: Christopher Yenkey: Selling Value in Kenya's Nairobi Stock Exchange
12: Charles Smith: Coping with Contingencies in Equity Option Markets: The "Rationality" of Pricing
Section IV: Organizations
13: Davide Ravasi, Violina Rindova, and Ileana Stigliani: Valuing Products as Cultural Symbols: A Conceptual Framework and Empirical Illustration
Postscript
14: David Stark: What's Valuable?

Link to Authors webpage