Future Matters. The role of imaginaries in Economics Decisions

Jens BECKERT, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies
Discussant: Richard BRONK, London School of Economics and Political Science

Jens BECKERT is professor of sociology and director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. Currently he is a fellowat the Institut d’études avancées in Paris. He studied sociology and business administration at the Freie Universität Berlin and the New School for Social Research in New York, received his Ph.D. in sociology from the Freie Universität in 1996 and his Habilitation in 2003. Beckert was a visiting fellow at the sociology department of Princeton University in 1994/95 and at the Center for European Studies of Harvard University in 2001/02. In 2007 he was a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence and in 2008 a guest researcher at the CSO in Paris. His research focuses on the fields of economic sociology, organization theory and social theory. Recent publications: 2011: The Worth of Goods. Valuation and Pricing in the Economy (edited together with Patrik Aspers), Oxford University Press 2011, Inherited Wealth, Princeton University Press, 2008. Beyond the Market. The Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency,Princeton University Press 2002. International Encyclopedia of Economic Sociology (edited together with Milan Zafirovski), Routledge 2006.

http://www.maxpo.eu/downloads/beckert-1.pdf
http://www.maxpo.eu/downloads/beckert-2.pdf

 

 

 Richard BRONK is a writer and Visiting Fellow at the European Institute of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where hetaught from 2000-2007. His academic expertise is in the history of ideas, philosophy of economics, comparative corporate governance and European political economy. He is author of Progress and the Invisible Hand – the Philosophy and Economics of Human Advance (Little Brown, 1998); and The Romantic Economist – Imagination in Economics (Cambridge University Press, 2009). Educated at Merton College, Oxford, with an MA (Oxon) in Classics and Philosophy, Richard spent seventeen years in the City of London – positions including head of European equities at Baring Asset Management, European equity strategist at Merrill Lynch, and Adviser on European capital markets and political economy at the Bank of England – before returning to academia in 2000. Richard’s current research interests centre on uncertainty; the role of imagination, language and metaphor in economics; the dangers of economic monoculture; and the epistemology of markets.His approach to philosophy of economics is grounded in a history of ideas perspective and in his practical experience in markets and economic policy. He is currently working on Hayek and the information provided by prices.