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E-book Deciphering Markets and Money : A Sociological Analysis of Economic Institutions
Economic sociology has experienced a remarkable revival during the last cou-ple of decades, and it has become one of the most innovative fields of sociologi-cal research. The drastic recent economic developments—the financial crises above all—took many analysts and experts by surprise. Changes in economic policy in Europe, the United States, and the world at large have also contrib-uted to the increasing interest in the sociological analysis of economic phe-nomena and institutions by offering new, challenging research questions and demonstrating some of the limits and problems inherent in standard economic thinking and reasoning. For example, the various new instruments which have appeared quickly in financial markets, from subprime loans and loan swaps to futures trading and hedging, have become important new objects of study. Financialization and the numerous new forms of financial markets are in many ways a good test for the relevance and validity of both economics and economic sociology. More often than not these analyses have, however, been rather con-crete and historical, undoubtedly of great value as such, in trying to come to terms with the new economic world. At the same time, rather few attempts to develop any more general theoretical understanding, for instance about the causes, conditions, forms and consequences of financialization, deregulation of markets, or other important developments in modern economy, have been on offer.
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