Designing a market-like entity

Economics in the politics of market formation

Bibliographic Data

ID11923408
AuthorsDaniel Breslau (Virginia Tech, corresponding author)
Year2013
Volume43
Issue6
Pages829-851
Publication date2013-08-05
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Studies of Science (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0306-3127 • E-ISSN: 1460-3659
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/0306312713493962
OpenAlexW1985187983
LanguageEN
Citations received40
References cited26

Recent work on the relationship of economics to economic institutions has argued that economics is constitutive of economic institutions, and of markets in particular. In opposition to economic sociology, which has treated economics as a competing disciplinary frame or an ideology, the ‘performativity’ literature takes economics seriously as a set of market-building practices. This article demonstrates the compatibility of these perspectives by analyzing the role of economics in the politics of market formation. It presents a case study of the formation of a new institution: capacity markets connected to wholesale electricity markets in the United States. The case demonstrates how economic framing shapes the politics of markets by imposing a specific set of terms for the legitimate conduct of the struggle over market rules

Applied economics · Discipline · Economic sociology · Economics · Factor market · Framing (construction · Ideology · Institutional economics · Market economy · Neoclassical economics · Nonmarket forces · Opposition (politics · Performativity · Political science · Politics · Positive economics · Schools of economic thought · Social science · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Law · Political Economy and Marxism