Markets as Sites for Social Interaction


Book Description

This survey is the first comprehensive account of English markets as a social space. It investigates markets throughout the country and comes to some surprising conclusions about the role they play in the world of modern Britain. A free pdf version of this report is available online at www.jrf.org.uk




Contested Markets, Contested Cities


Book Description

Markets are at the origin of urban life as places for social, cultural and economic encounter evolving over centuries. Today, they have a particular value as mostly independent, non-corporate and often informal work spaces serving millions of the most vulnerable communities across the world. At the same time, markets have become fashionable destinations for ‘foodies’ and middle class consumers and tourists looking for authenticity and heritage. The confluence of these potentially contradictory actors and their interests turns markets into "contested spaces". Contested Markets, Contested Cities provides an analytical and multidisciplinary framework within which specific markets from Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Santiago de Chile, Quito, Sofia, Madrid, London and Leeds (UK) are explored. This pioneering and highly original work examines public markets from a perspective of contestation looking at their role in processes of gentrification but also in political mobilisation and urban justice.




Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia


Book Description

Economic behavior is governed by two major sets of boundary conditions: environmental and technological factors on the one hand, and conditions of social organization on the other hand. Indeed, social scientists are often particularly interested in the framework of exchange relationships: exchange of goods, services, personnel, and information. Economic exchanges lend concrete manifestations to social relations that themselves may transcend the economic realm and that otherwise are often difficult to trace. Yet in social science research in Southeast Asia, the area of economic studies has lagged behind, despite the great study potential represented by the tremendous diversity of its physical and human environment. Economic Exchange and Social Interaction in Southeast Asia attempts to take advantage of that opportunity. As a number of the contributions to this volume show, many if not most of the systems organized on very different levels of integration interact with each other. Taken as a whole, they provide evidence of the incredible diversity of economic and social systems that may be investigated in Southeast Asia.




Social Interactions in the Labor Market


Book Description

Social Interactions in the Labor Market addresses the following questions: How do theoretical economic models and their associated econometric representations change when there are social interactions among households? How do policy implications change as the result of estimated households' social interactions? The authors present a unified theoretical and empirical representation of social interactions as they pertain to labor supply and demand and demonstrate the cases where current policy prescriptions are greatly altered by the presence of social interactions. Section 2 examines theoretically the effect of household interdependencies on how a researcher estimates and interprets labor supply and earnings equations. Having examined labor supply issues, Section 3 and give theoretical attention to labor demand. As a further demonstration how the presence of social interactions complicates thinking about economic policy the authors consider overall labor market outcomes and related economic policy further in Section 4 by examining theoretically the socially optimal wealth distribution. Section 5 measures local economic conditions by the county unemployment rate and neighborhood spillover effects by the racial makeup and poverty rate of the county. Lastly, Section 6 examines the econometric details of implementing an empirical model with possible social interactions in labor supply.




Markets, Places, Cities


Book Description

Using a transnational analytical framework, this book provides a comprehensive overview of formal and informal markets and place in globalised cities. It examines how urban markets are situated within social, cultural and media discourses, and within material and symbolic economies. The book addresses four key narratives – redevelopment and relocation; privatization of public space; urban renewal; and urbanism and sustainability – to investigate shared and individual attributes of markets and place in diverse, international urban contexts. With case studies in Sydney, Hong Kong, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, London, Antwerp, Amsterdam, Paris and San Francisco, experiences of market, place and city are explored through interdisciplinary and multimodal perspectives of visual culture, spatial practice, urban design and textual analysis.




Market failure?


Book Description

The Committee undertook this inquiry into traditional retail markets to determine whether local authorities and central government should be doing more to support them. The Committee has come to appreciate the complex and diverse nature of the traditional retail markets sector. A significant number of all types of markets continue to thrive, but the number in decline appears to be greater than the number that is not. There are a number of reasons for the decline, the most significant being increased competition from supermarkets, other alternative cheap retail outlets and the internet. Nevertheless, a growing number of markets are adapting successfully to change. Local authorities and central government should care about markets, because of the multi-faceted nature of the benefits that successful markets can bring to local towns and communities. The report identifies five key benefits: economic; social (eg in encouraging social cohesion); assisting the regeneration of town centres; promoting healthy eating; and reducing environmental impacts in the retail sector. On finance and management the report notes lessons from elsewhere in Europe; identifies best practice, and recommends that councils consider using prudential borrowing, market champions at a senior level within the council, and co-operation with the private sector. The report also addresses; the challenges facing medium and small town councils seeking to keep smaller, local markets alive; the need for better promotion and recruitment and training for existing traders and market managers; the strategic role of central government.




Connections


Book Description

Networks pervade social and economic life, and they play a prominent role in explaining a huge variety of social and economic phenomena. Standard economic theory did not give much credit to the role of networks until the early 1990s, but since then the study of the theory of networks has blossomed. At the heart of this research is the idea that the pattern of connections between individual rational agents shapes their actions and determines their rewards. The importance of connections has in turn motivated the study of the very processes by which networks are formed. In Connections, Sanjeev Goyal puts contemporary thinking about networks and economic activity into context. He develops a general framework within which this body of research can be located. In the first part of the book he demonstrates that location in a network has significant effects on individual rewards and that, given this, it is natural that individuals will seek to form connections to move the network in their favor. This idea motivates the second part of the book, which develops a general theory of network formation founded on individual incentives. Goyal assesses the robustness of current research findings and identifies the substantive open questions. Written in a style that combines simple examples with formal models and complete mathematical proofs, Connections is a concise and self-contained treatment of the economic theory of networks, one that should become the natural source of reference for graduate students in economics and related disciplines.




Keys to the City


Book Description

Why do some cities grow economically while others decline? Why do some show sustained economic performance while others cycle up and down? In Keys to the City, Michael Storper, one of the world's leading economic geographers, looks at why we should consider economic development issues within a regional context--at the level of the city-region--and why city economies develop unequally. Storper identifies four contexts that shape urban economic development: economic, institutional, innovational and interactional, and political. The book explores how these contexts operate and how they interact, leading to developmental success in some regions and failure in others. Demonstrating that the global economy is increasingly driven by its major cities, the keys to the city are the keys to global development. In his conclusion, Storper specifies eight rules of economic development targeted at policymakers. Keys to the City explains why economists, sociologists, and political scientists should take geography seriously.




Multimodality and Social Interaction in Online and Offline Shopping


Book Description

This collection brings together social semiotic, ethnographic, and conversation analytic approaches to multimodality in global studies of shopping, drawing on the rich diversity of the latest multimodal methods to critically reflect on shopping as a cornerstone of contemporary social life. The volume explores shopping as an area of study in its own right, with the buying and selling of goods and services a fundamental part of the social and cultural life of human communities for centuries. The book looks at both online and offline shopping, examining it as both everyday multi-sensorial practice and its translation into the interactive text and imagery that comprise the online shopping experience, from London street markets to Japanese grocery shops to Danish supermarkets to worldwide online shopping sites. Highlighting the diversity of modern multimodal approaches through contributions from established scholars, the book critically surveys both the challenges and opportunities in the embodied interactions between buyers and sellers and how these points of connection have been translated and will continue to transform in the age of algorithms and emergent technologies. This book will appeal to students and scholars interested in multimodality, multimodal conversation analysis, social semiotics, social interaction, and retail studies.




The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology


Book Description

In the last two years, consumers have experienced massive changes in consumption – whether due to shifts in habits; the changing information landscape; challenges to their identity, or new economic experiences of scarcity or abundance. What can we expect from these experiences? How are the world's leading thinkers applying both foundational knowledge and novel insights as we seek to understand consumer psychology in a constantly changing landscape? And how can informed readers both contribute to and evaluate our knowledge? This handbook offers a critical overview of both fundamental topics in consumer psychology and those that are of prominence in the contemporary marketplace, beginning with an examination of individual psychology and broadening to topics related to wider cultural and marketplace systems. The Cambridge Handbook of Consumer Psychology, 2nd edition, will act as a valuable guide for teachers and graduate and undergraduate students in psychology, marketing, management, economics, sociology, and anthropology.