Magnificent book! On Sun, Jul 29, 2012 at 7:05 AM, Charles Turner <[email protected]> wrote: > Thought someone here might be interested in this download: > > <http://monoskop.org/log/?p=5042> > > The blurb: > > "In An Engine, Not a Camera, Donald MacKenzie argues that the > emergence of modern economic theories of finance affected financial > markets in fundamental ways. These new, Nobel Prize-winning theories, > based on elegant mathematical models of markets, were not simply > external analyses but intrinsic parts of economic processes. > > "Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, MacKenzie says that economic models are > an engine of inquiry rather than a camera to reproduce empirical > facts. More than that, the emergence of an authoritative theory of > financial markets altered those markets fundamentally. For example, in > 1970, there was almost no trading in financial derivatives such as > “futures.” By June of 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 > trillion were outstanding worldwide. MacKenzie suggests that this > growth could never have happened without the development of theories > that gave derivatives legitimacy and explained their complexities. > > "MacKenzie examines the role played by finance theory in the two most > serious crises to hit the world’s financial markets in recent years: > the stock market crash of 1987 and the market turmoil that engulfed > the hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management in 1998. He also looks at > finance theory that is somewhat beyond the mainstream—chaos theorist > Benoit Mandelbrot’s model of “wild” randomness. MacKenzie’s pioneering > work in the social studies of finance will interest anyone who wants > to understand how America’s financial markets have grown into their > current form. > > ___________________________________ > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 530 898 5321 fax 530 898 5901 http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
