Markets as evolving computational entities

Mirowski, Philip; Somefun, Koye

doi:10.1007/s001910050067

Cited by 43 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 14 publications

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“…For instance, a double auction can be described and analysed independently of the goods to which it relates and the calculative capacities of the agents involved. From this point of view, the experiments by Gode and Sunder with 'zero intelligence' traders are significant (Gode and Sunder 1993; see also Mirowski and Somefun 1998;Mirowski 2002). They suggest that, in an experimental double auction, the convergence of traders towards predicted prices and quantities will happen whether traders are human subjects or simplistic robots.…”

Section: Algorithmic Configurationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peripheral Vision

Callon

Muniesa

2005

Organization Studies

1,097

179

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How to address empirically the calculative character of markets without dissolving it? In our paper, we propose a theoretical framework that helps to deal with markets without suspending their calculative properties. In the first section, we construct a broad definition of calculation, grounded on the anthropology of science and techniques. In the next sections, we apply this definition to three constitutive elements of markets: economic goods, economic agents and economic exchanges. First, we examine the question of the calculability of goods: in order to be calculated, goods must be calculable. In the following section, we introduce the notion of calculative distributed agencies to understand how these calculable goods are actually calculated. Thirdly, we consider the rules and material devices that organize the encounter between (and aggregation of) individual supplies and demands, i.e. the specific organizations that allow for a calculated exchange and a market output. Those three elements define concrete markets as collective organized devices that calculate compromises on the values of goods. In each, we encounter different versions of our broad definition of calculation, which we illustrate with examples, mainly taken from the fields of financial markets and mass retail.

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Section: Algorithmic Configurationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Peripheral Vision

Callon

Muniesa

2005

Organization Studies

1,097

179

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“…20. For useful discussions of these results, see Denzau and North 1994, Mirowski 2002, and Mirowski and Somefun 1998. Jean-Michel Grandmont (1992 has similarly demonstrated that aggregate demand can be well behaved under certain distributional restrictions, merely by assuming that individual behavior satisfies budget constraints, without any reference to utility maximization.…”

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confidence: 99%

What Are Institutions?

2007

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A primary aim of this paper is to establish some workable meanings of key terms of institutional theory including institution, convention and organization, by drawing on insights from several academic disciplines. Institutions are defined broadly as systems of established and prevalent social rules that structure social interactions. This, in turn, prompts some examination of the concept of a rule, and why rules are followed. The author discusses some general issues concerning how institutions function and how they interact with individual agents, their habits, and their beliefs. The paper also addresses the controversial distinction between institutions and organizations. D. North’s influential formulations of these terms are criticized for being incomplete and misleading. The author examines this distinction and what may be meant by the term formal when applied to institutions or rules. Here an organization is treated as a type of institution involving membership and sovereignty. Further types of institution are also considered, including the difference between self-organizing and other institutions. The article identifies an excessive bias in the discussion of institutions toward those of the self-organizing type, showing theoretically that these are a special case. The author argues that institutions also differ with regard to their degree of sensitivity to changes in the personalities of the agents involved.

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“…As Kohn (2004, p. 311) explains, "liberated from the assumption of trading equilibrium, it is possible to be more realistic about the trading environment". From the generic perspective, this means a greater specification of the rules of the market to include not just analysis of the technical rules of markets (Mirowski and Somefun 1998), but also about the broader cognitive, behavioral, and social rules that compose markets (Earl and Potts 2004;Potts and Morrison 2007).…”

Section: Markets and Evolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Exchange and evolution

Potts

2007

Rev Austrian Econ

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This paper offers an extension of the distinction of [Kohn, Cato Journal, 24:303–339 (2004)] between the two paradigms of modern economic theory—value and exchange—as derived from the generic–operant framework of [Dopfer and Potts, The general theory of economic evolution, Routledge, London, (2007)]. I argue that Austrian and evolutionary economics can be analytically unified about a general framework of rule coordination and change that I shall call the generic value paradigm. This is an analytic generalization of Kohn’s “exchange paradigm” that will allow us to redefine his conception of the “value paradigm” as the operational value paradigm in terms of the economics of known and fully exploited opportunities. The generic value paradigm, in turn, underpins the economics of the growth of knowledge and the evolution of the economic order as an open-system process due to the origination, adoption, and retention of novel generic rules. Austrian economics is then circumscribed as a special case of the more general “generic” analysis of the coordination and evolution of economic rules. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007Generic and operant analysis, Rules, Economic evolution, A1, B0, D0, E0, O1, P0,

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Markets as evolving computational entities

Cited by 43 publications

References 14 publications

Peripheral Vision

Peripheral Vision

What Are Institutions?

Exchange and evolution

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