Around the globe economists affect markets by saying what markets are doing what they should
do and what they will do. Increasingly experimental economists are even designing real-world
markets. But despite these facts economists are still largely thought of as scientists who
merely observe markets from the outside like astronomers look at the stars. Do Economists Make
Markets? boldly challenges this view. It is the first book dedicated to the controversial
question of whether economics is performative--of whether in some cases economics actually
produces the phenomena it analyzes. The book's case studies--including financial derivatives
markets telecommunications-frequency auctions and individual transferable quotas in
fisheries--give substance to the notion of the performativity of economics in an accessible
nontechnical way. Some chapters defend the notion others attack it vigorously. The book ends
with an extended chapter in which Michel Callon the idea's main formulator reflects upon the
debate and asks what it means to say economics is performative. The book's insights and strong
claims about the ways economics is entangled with the markets it studies should interest--and
provoke--economic sociologists economists and other social scientists. In addition to the
editors and Callon the contributors include Marie-France Garcia-Parpet Francesco Guala
Emmanuel Didier Philip Mirowski Edward Nik-Khah Petter Holm Vincent-Antonin Lépinay and
Timothy Mitchell.
