Concerned Markets: Economic Ordering for Multiple Values

'The insightful chapters collected here show that markets are a matter of concern because they can be spaces for making concerns matter.' — David Stark, Columbia University, US and author of The Sense of Dissonance: Accounts of Worth in Economic Life' 'Do those impersonal allocation mechanisms that we call markets even exist as such? Or should we drop this questionable euphemism if what we want is to address the political struggles and bureaucratic processes that control economic life? Readers interested in a measured approach to the subject matter will find a set of clues here. By considering markets as nodes of concerns, the works assembled in this volume guide us along a subtle path.' — Fabian Muniesa, Ecole des Mines de Paris, France. Concerned Markets tackles the intersection between markets and politics, investigating the very current issue of designing markets to include multiple values. When political, social, technological and economic interests, values, and perspectives interact, market order and performance become contentious issues of debate. Such 'hot' situations are becoming increasingly common and make for rich sites of research. With expert empirical contributions investigating the organization of such 'concerned' markets, this book is positioned at the centre of the rapidly growing area of interdisciplinary market studies. Markets investigated include those for palm oil, primary health care and functional foods. The authors also examine markets and environmental concerns as well as better market design for those at the bottom of the pyramid. Scholars, postgraduate and PhD level students in finance, economic sociology, marketing, organisation theory and economics will find this book essential reading. Policymakers and practitioners will benefit from the fresh insight into the design and maintenance of market systems.