This innovative book employs the social studies of finance approach, which aims to enhance the dialogue between finance and sociology by addressing the blind spots of economic and financial theories. In so doing, it challenges the accusations made towards financial models in the aftermath of the last economic crisis and argues that they cannot be condemned indiscriminately. Their influence on markets and society is not straightforward, but determined by the many ways in which models are created and then used. Ekaterina Svetlova analyses the various patterns of the application of models in asset management, risk management and financial engineering to demonstrate that their power is far more fragile than widespread criticism would indicate.This unique and stimulating book furthers our understanding of the influence of financial models on markets and society more broadly. It will be of value to academics in the social studies of finance, economic sociology, philosophy of economics and political economy. It will also useful to practitioners who design and apply models within financial markets, regulators and policy-makers involved in the stability of financial markets, as well as any readers with a general interest in these areas.

In this book, sociologists, philosophers, and economists investigate the conceptual issues around the performativity of economics over a variety of disciplinary contexts and provide new case studies illuminating this phenomenon. In featuring the latest contributions to the performativity debate the book revives discussion of the fundamental questions: What precise meaning can we attribute to the notion of performativity? What empirical evidence can help us recognize economics as performative? And what consequences does performativity have for contemporary societies? The contributions demonstrate how performativity can serve as a powerful conceptual resource in dealing with economic knowledge, as an inspiring framework for investigating performative practices, and as an engine of discovery for thinking of the economic proper.

Investment is no longer a matter of individual savers directly choosing which shares or bonds to buy. Rather, most of their money flows through a 'chain': an often extended sequence of intermediaries. What goes on in that chain is of huge importance: The world's investment managers, who are now almost as well paid as top bankers, control assets equivalent in value to around a year of total global economic output. In Chains of Finance, five social scientists discuss the ways in which the intermediaries in the chain influence each other, channel the flows of savers' money, enhance investment decisions, and form audiences for each other's performances of financially competent selves. The central argument of the book is that investment management is fashioned profoundly by the opportunities and constraints this chain creates. Whether chains constrain or enable, however, they always entangle, tying intermediaries to each other - silently and profoundly shaping the investment management industry. Chains of Finance is a novel analysis that will make students, social scientists, financial professionals, and regulators looking at the workings of financial markets in a new light. A must-read for anyone looking for insights into the decision-making processes of investment managers and those influenced by and working for them.