Model Talk
Calculative Cultures in Quantitative Finance
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5337595 |
|---|---|
| Authors | K B Hansen (0000-0002-9536-6050, Copenhagen Business School, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2021 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 600-627 |
| Publication date | 2021-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Science Technology & Human Values (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0162-2439 • E-ISSN: 1552-8251 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/0162243920944225 |
| OpenAlex | W3044337684 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 21 |
| References cited | 49 |
This paper explores how calculative cultures shape perceptions of models and practices of model use in the financial industry. A calculative culture comprises a specific set of practices and norms concerning data and model use in an organizational setting. Drawing on interviews with model users (data scientists, software developers, traders, and portfolio managers) working in algorithmic securities trading, I argue that the introduction of complex machine-learning models changes the dynamics in calculative cultures, which leads to a displacement of human judgment in quantitative finance. In this paper, I distinguish between three calculative cultures: (1) an idealistic culture of undivided trust in models, (2) a pragmatic culture of skepticism toward model accuracy, and (3) a pragmatic idealist culture of early stage skepticism and implementation and production-phase idealism. Based on the empirical material, the analysis engages with examples of each of the three calculative cultures. The study contributes to the social studies of finance and science and technology studies more broadly by showing how perceptions of models shape and are shaped through model work in data-intensive, computerized finance
Economics · Epistemology · Idealism · Management · Organizational culture · Portfolio · Skepticism · Sociology · Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis · FinTech, Crowdfunding, Digital Finance · Finance
Ethnographies of Human‐AI Collaborations
Knowing (in) organizations
Systemic failures and organizational risk management in algorithmic trading
Hybrid materialities, power, and expertise in the era of general purpose technologies
Machine learning and social theory
Asset manager capitalism and the political economy of artificial intelligence
Nothing new under the sun
Interviewing AI
The end of theory? AI and ignorance in financial markets
How risk scores encode financial logics in health
Moral authority over risk classifications
The absorption and multiplication of uncertainty in machine-learning-driven finance
The Stack Inversion
Alternative data and sentiment analysis
Toward a sociology of machine learning explainability
Does social communication make investors stay in the market
How to think about people who don't want to be studied
Replace, absorb, serve
Stack bricolage and infrastructural impermanence in financial machine-learning modelling
Expectations, competencies and domain knowledge in data- and machine-driven finance
Machine learning and social action in markets
Chains of Finance
Narrative Construction as Sensemaking
Machine behaviour
An Engine, Not a Camera
Algorithmic decision-making? The user interface and its role for human involvement in decisions supported by artificial intelligence
On studying algorithms ethnographically
Automating Finance
Consistent Forecasting vs. Anchoring of Market Stories
Moore's Law versus Murphy's Law
The invention of operational risk
Culture in global knowledge societies
A material political economy
De-idealization by commentary
The formula that killed Wall Street
Toward an Ethics of Algorithms
Anthropology and the Cultural Study of Science
Perspectives on algorithmic normativities
The ethics of algorithms
Algorithms as culture
Physics and Finance
Mechanizing the Merc
Models at Work-Models in Decision Making
Markets, bodies, and rhythms
High-frequency trader subjectivity
Financialization as calculative practice
Machine Learning
Introduction
Material Signals
The Credit Crisis as a Problem in the Sociology of Knowledge
Constructing a Market, Performing Theory
Organizational ignorance
Bugs, predations or manipulations? Incompatible epistemic regimes of high-frequency trading
From dissonance to resonance
On the performative power of financial models
Long-Term Capital Management and the sociology of arbitrage
| Unique citing works | 21 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 4,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2026 (6) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 20 |