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Uncertain Futures considers how economists visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of uncertainty. As dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by innovation and novelty they exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced. This book questions how expectations can be formed and decisions made in spite of uncertainty.
List of contents
- 1: Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk: An Introduction to Uncertain Futures
- Section I: The Nature of Expectations in Modern Political Economies
- 2: Robert Boyer: Expectations, Narratives, and Socio-Economic Regimes
- 3: David Tuckett: Conviction Narrative Theory and Understanding Decision-Making in Economics and Finance
- 4: Jenny Andersson: Arctic Futures: Expectations, Interests, Claims, and the Making of Arctic Territory
- Section II: The Strange World of Economic Forecasting
- 5: Werner Reichmann: The Interactional Foundations of Economic Forecasting
- 6: Olivier Pilmis: Escaping the Reality Test: How Macroeconomic Forecasters Deal with 'Errors'
- 7: Andrew G. Haldane: Uncertainty in Macroeconomic Modelling
- Section III: The Role of Narratives and Planning in Central Banking
- 8: Douglas R. Holmes: A Tractable Future: Central Banks in Conversation with their Publics
- 9: Benjamin Braun: Central Bank Planning? Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Price of Bending the Yield Curve
- Section IV: Constructing Futures in Finance
- 10: Elena Esposito: Predicted Uncertainty: Volatility Calculus and the Indeterminacy of the Future
- 11: Natalia Besedovsky: Uncertain Meanings of Risk: Calculative Practices and Risk Conceptions in Credit Rating Agencies
- Section V: Managing Expectations in Innovative Business
- 12: Martin Giraudeau: Processing the Future: Venture Project Evaluation at American Research and Development Corporation (1946-1973)
- 13: Liliana Doganova: Discounting and the Making of the Future: On Uncertainty in Forest Management and Drug Development
- 14: Timur Ergen: The Dilemma between Aligned Expectations and Diversity in Innovation: Evidence from Early Energy Technology Policies
About the author
Jens Beckert is director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. In 2018 he was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize for his work reinvigorating the social sciences with an interdisciplinary perspective, especially at the intersection of sociology and economics. His research focuses on the fields of economic sociology, sociology of inheritance, organization theory, and social theory.
Richard Bronk is a Visiting Senior Fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He spent seventeen years working in the City of London and the Bank of England before teaching political economy at LSE from 2000-2007. His research now focuses on the role of imagination and language in economics, the dangers of analytical and regulatory monocultures, and the epistemology of markets.
Summary
Uncertain Futures considers how economic actors visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of radical uncertainty. It starts from the premise that dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and novelty and hence exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. The organizing question then becomes how economic actors form expectations and make decisions despite the uncertainty they face.
This edited volume lays the foundations for a new model of economic reasoning by showing how, in conditions of uncertainty, economic actors combine calculation with imaginaries and narratives to form fictional expectations that coordinate action and provide the confidence to act. It draws on groundbreaking research in economic sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology to present theoretically grounded empirical case studies. These demonstrate how grand narratives, central bank forward guidance, economic forecasts, finance models, business plans, visions of technological futures, and new era stories influence behaviour and become instruments of power in markets and societies. The market impact of shared calculative devices, social narratives, and contingent imaginaries underlines the rationale for a new form of narrative economics.
Additional text
"Questions about how best to characterise the practical grounds of economic agency and the epistemic tools for interpreting it, remain absolutely wide open. They are posed throughout Uncertain Futures in a variety of interesting forms, making this edited volume by Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk an important contribution to current debates on these fundamental economic issues that deserves to be widely read and constructively criticised." - Samuel Sadian, University of Barcelona
Report
By making the reader enter the complex worlds of uncertainty management in the economy, Uncertain Futures demonstrates the richness of the contemporary field of research about "futures" in the social sciences....This book offers great insights for any social scientist interested in future management and social action. Sidonie Naulin, University Grenoble Alpes, European Journal of Sociologu
