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Drilling Through The Allegheny Mountains

Author

Listed:
  • Donald MacKenzie
  • Daniel Beunza
  • Yuval Millo
  • Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra

Abstract

In 1999, Carruthers and Stinchcombe provided the classic discussion of ‘the social structure of liquidity’: the institutional arrangements that support markets in which ‘exchange occurs easily and frequently’. Our argument in this paper is that the material aspects of these arrangements -- and particularly the materiality of prices -- need far closer attention than they normally receive. We develop this argument by highlighting two features of new assemblages that have been created in financial markets since 1999. First, these assemblages give sharp economic significance to spatial location and to physical phenomena such as the speed of light (the physics of these assemblages is Einsteinian, not Newtonian, so to speak). Second, they have provoked fierce controversy focusing on ultra-fast ‘high-frequency trading’, controversy in which issues of materiality are interwoven intimately with questions of legitimacy, particularly of fairness.

Suggested Citation

  • Donald MacKenzie & Daniel Beunza & Yuval Millo & Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra, 2012. "Drilling Through The Allegheny Mountains," Journal of Cultural Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(3), pages 279-296, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jculte:v:5:y:2012:i:3:p:279-296
    DOI: 10.1080/17530350.2012.674963
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Zaloom, Caitlin, 2006. "Out of the Pits," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226978130, Febrero.
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    Cited by:

    1. Matthew Zook & Michael H Grote, 2017. "The microgeographies of global finance: High-frequency trading and the construction of information inequality," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(1), pages 121-140, January.
    2. Hélène Rainelli & Hélène Rainelli-Weiss, 2019. "Recherche en finance : quand la performativité invite à la réflexivité," Post-Print halshs-02025011, HAL.
    3. Sarah Hall & Adam Leaver & Leonard Seabrooke & Daniel Tischer, 2023. "The changing spatial arrangements of global finance: Financial, social and legal infrastructures," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(4), pages 923-930, June.
    4. Théo Bourgeron, 2018. "Optimising ‘cash flows’: converting corporate finance to hard currency," Post-Print hal-03165942, HAL.
    5. Mina Karzand & Lav R. Varshney, 2015. "Communication Strategies for Low-Latency Trading," Papers 1504.07227, arXiv.org.
    6. Elizabeth Ferry, 2024. "National capitalism, unhinged," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(1), pages 150-152, January.

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