History
Financial markets have been an object for sociological inquiry since, at least, Max Weber’s Die Börse. The raise of quantitative financial theory in financial economics from the 1950s onwards has led to an academic specialization on financial markets rather focused on economic modeling, and poorly attentive to sociological aspects. In the 1980s, a number of economic sociologists developed empirical investigation on the social structure and cultural characteristics of financial markets, especially in the US. Such pioneering researcher included contributions from Wayne E. Baker, Mitchel Y. Abolafia and Charles W. Smith, and was based on methods such as ethnographic observation or social network analysis. In the 1990s, a number of researchers from the field of science and technology studies such as Karin Knorr-Cetina and Donald A. MacKenzie started also developing empirical research in this area, with close attention to the role of expert knowledge and technology in financial activities.
Read more about this topic: Social Studies Of Finance
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“A man will not need to study history to find out what is best for his own culture.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“I feel as tall as you.”
—Ellis Meredith, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 14, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)