149 - Regular Session. Economic Sociology: Herds, Runs, Bubbles: Social Influences in Financial Markets

Session Submission Type: Paper Session

Abstract

This session focuses on the sociological foundations for asset bubbles, cascade credit runs in financial markets, addressing dynamics and instabilities in markets that were central to the financial crisis in ways that go beyond conceptions of “irrational exuberance” or simple models of herding. The papers address mechanisms ranging from social influence and status dynamics, expectation states, and cultural processes based analogizing, and suggests some possibilities for how runs and cascades might be tempered, giving policy makers some room to manage and avoid crises.

Sub Unit

• Economic Sociology

Session Organizer

• Marc Schneiberg, Reed College

Presider

• Charles B. Perrow, Yale University

Individual Presentations

• Experimental Study of Crowdfunding Cascades: When Nothing is Better than Something - Rembrand Michael Koning, Stanford University; Jacob Model, Stanford University

• Smart Money in Dumb Money: A Survey on Beijing Real Estate Market Bubble - Jiayin Zhang, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• State-Market Interactions at the Height of the Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis - Jason O. Jensen, McGill University

• Failing the Test of Time: The 2008 Mortgage Crisis as a Case of Analogical Lock-In - Natalya Vinokurova, The Wharton School

Discussant

• Charles B. Perrow, Yale University