Georg Rilinger
Biographic Data
| ID | 290584 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Georg Rilinger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Georg |
| FAMILY NAME | Rilinger |
| SIGNATURE | RILINGER G |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7735-3379 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 26 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Uncertainty: Individual Problems and Public Solutions
Market Design as Organizational Problem: Explaining System Failures in Platform Markets
System failures occur when organizations managing sociotechnical systems lose control over interactions between components. To prevent such failures, organizations decompose systems into simpler parts and empower frontline experts to manage them in a flat hierarchy. The article examines whether such “modularization” applies to the design of platform markets, focusing on California’s electricity markets between 1995 and 2000. Although modularizati…
Algorithmic Management and the Social Order of Digital Markets
Platform companies use techniques of algorithmic management to control their users. Though digital marketplaces vary in their use of these techniques, few studies have asked why. This question is theoretically consequential. Economic sociology has traditionally focused on the embedded activities of market actors to explain competitive and valuation dynamics in markets. But restrictive platforms can leave little autonomy to market actors. Whether …
Conceptual limits of performativity: Assessing the Feasibility of Market Design Blueprints
Market designers work as social engineers. They create institutional structures to enforce the assumptions of theoretical market mechanisms. Despite much work on performative effects of economics, sociology has not analyzed the feasibility of designers' theoretical blueprints. This article suggests that this may be done by identifying assumptions that derail the mechanism if they are not enforced. Sociologists then need to trace obstacles to thei…
The Current Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economics
Discursive multivocality: How the Proliferation of Economic Language Can Undermine the Political Influence of Economists
This article shows how the proliferation of economic language can undermine the political authority of economists. The argument emerges from a comparative case study of two early experiments with electricity market design. Relying on archival materials and 30 in-depth interviews, I examine why political actors ignored the advice of economists in California, while they deferred to the experts in the Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland (PJM) region. The…
Corporate Conspiracies and Complex Secrets: Structure and Perception of the Insull Scheme in 1930s Chicago
Studies of secrecy argue that criminal conspiracies are discovered when they fail to control the leakage of incriminating information. Yet, corporate crimes often remain secret even after crucial information has become public. To explain such cases, this article shifts attention from secret keepers to their audiences and proposes a relational theory of complex secrets, whose discovery requires finding and assembling sets of information relative t…
Discursive multivocality: How the Proliferation of Economic Language Can Undermine the Political Influence of Economists
This article shows how the proliferation of economic language can undermine the political authority of economists. The argument emerges from a comparative case study of two early experiments with electricity market design. Relying on archival materials and 30 in-depth interviews, I examine why political actors ignored the advice of economists in California, while they deferred to the experts in the Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland (PJM) region. The…
Conceptual limits of performativity: Assessing the Feasibility of Market Design Blueprints
Market designers work as social engineers. They create institutional structures to enforce the assumptions of theoretical market mechanisms. Despite much work on performative effects of economics, sociology has not analyzed the feasibility of designers' theoretical blueprints. This article suggests that this may be done by identifying assumptions that derail the mechanism if they are not enforced. Sociologists then need to trace obstacles to thei…
The Current Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economics
Corporate Conspiracies and Complex Secrets: Structure and Perception of the Insull Scheme in 1930s Chicago
Studies of secrecy argue that criminal conspiracies are discovered when they fail to control the leakage of incriminating information. Yet, corporate crimes often remain secret even after crucial information has become public. To explain such cases, this article shifts attention from secret keepers to their audiences and proposes a relational theory of complex secrets, whose discovery requires finding and assembling sets of information relative t…
Market Design as Organizational Problem: Explaining System Failures in Platform Markets
System failures occur when organizations managing sociotechnical systems lose control over interactions between components. To prevent such failures, organizations decompose systems into simpler parts and empower frontline experts to manage them in a flat hierarchy. The article examines whether such “modularization” applies to the design of platform markets, focusing on California’s electricity markets between 1995 and 2000. Although modularizati…
Algorithmic Management and the Social Order of Digital Markets
Platform companies use techniques of algorithmic management to control their users. Though digital marketplaces vary in their use of these techniques, few studies have asked why. This question is theoretically consequential. Economic sociology has traditionally focused on the embedded activities of market actors to explain competitive and valuation dynamics in markets. But restrictive platforms can leave little autonomy to market actors. Whether …
Corporate Conspiracies and Complex Secrets: Structure and Perception of the Insull Scheme in 1930s Chicago
Studies of secrecy argue that criminal conspiracies are discovered when they fail to control the leakage of incriminating information. Yet, corporate crimes often remain secret even after crucial information has become public. To explain such cases, this article shifts attention from secret keepers to their audiences and proposes a relational theory of complex secrets, whose discovery requires finding and assembling sets of information relative t…
The Current Economy: Electricity Markets and Techno-Economics
Discursive multivocality: How the Proliferation of Economic Language Can Undermine the Political Influence of Economists
This article shows how the proliferation of economic language can undermine the political authority of economists. The argument emerges from a comparative case study of two early experiments with electricity market design. Relying on archival materials and 30 in-depth interviews, I examine why political actors ignored the advice of economists in California, while they deferred to the experts in the Pennsylvania, Jersey, Maryland (PJM) region. The…
Conceptual limits of performativity: Assessing the Feasibility of Market Design Blueprints
Market designers work as social engineers. They create institutional structures to enforce the assumptions of theoretical market mechanisms. Despite much work on performative effects of economics, sociology has not analyzed the feasibility of designers' theoretical blueprints. This article suggests that this may be done by identifying assumptions that derail the mechanism if they are not enforced. Sociologists then need to trace obstacles to thei…
Algorithmic Management and the Social Order of Digital Markets
Platform companies use techniques of algorithmic management to control their users. Though digital marketplaces vary in their use of these techniques, few studies have asked why. This question is theoretically consequential. Economic sociology has traditionally focused on the embedded activities of market actors to explain competitive and valuation dynamics in markets. But restrictive platforms can leave little autonomy to market actors. Whether …
Market Design as Organizational Problem: Explaining System Failures in Platform Markets
System failures occur when organizations managing sociotechnical systems lose control over interactions between components. To prevent such failures, organizations decompose systems into simpler parts and empower frontline experts to manage them in a flat hierarchy. The article examines whether such “modularization” applies to the design of platform markets, focusing on California’s electricity markets between 1995 and 2000. Although modularizati…
Uncertainty: Individual Problems and Public Solutions
Computer Science (5 works) · Economics (5 works) · Sociology (4 works) · Business (3 works) · Engineering (3 works) · Political science (3 works) · Digital Platforms and Economics (2 works) · Electricity (2 works) · Epistemology (2 works) · Law and economics (2 works)