The Worth of Goods

Jens Beckert is Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne and Professor of Sociology at the University of Cologne. He has held visiting positions at Princeton University, Harvard University, Cornell University, the European University Institute, and Sciences Po in Paris. The main focus of his research is economic sociology with a special emphasis on markets, organization studies, the sociology of inheritance and social theory. He is the author of Beyond the Market: the Social Foundations of Economic Efficiency (Princeton University Press 2002) and Inherited Wealth (Princeton University Press 2008). His articles have been published in journals such as Theory & Society, Sociological Theory, Organization Studies, and the European Journal of Sociology. Patrik Aspers holds a PhD in Sociology from Stockholm University (2001). He has been resident at institutions such as Harvard University, Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He has chaired the economic sociology research network of the European Sociological Association, and is President of the Swedish Sociological Association. The main focus of his research is on economic sociology, especially markets. He has published two books on markets: Markets in Fashion: A Phenomenological Approach (2nd. ed. Routledge 2006) and Orderly Fashion: A Sociology of Markets (Princeton University Press 2010). Aspers has written on classical economists such as Alfred Marshall and Vilfredo Pareto, and published in journals such as the Journal of Economic Geography and Theory and Society.

SECTION I: WHAT IS VALUABLE?; SECTION II: AESTHETIC MARKETS; SECTION III: FINANCIAL MARKETS; SECTION IV: ORGANIZATIONS; POSTSCRIPT