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Chapter 2 - Market Engineering: A New Problem for Market Studies?

from Part I - Market Designs and Market Misfires

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2024

By
Trine Pallesen ,
José Ossandón  and
Christian Frankel
Edited by
Susi Geiger ,
Katy Mason ,
Neil Pollock ,
Philip Roscoe ,
Annmarie Ryan ,
Stefan Schwarzkopf  and
Pascale Trompette
Susi Geiger
Affiliation:
University College Dublin
Katy Mason
Affiliation:
Lancaster University
Neil Pollock
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
Philip Roscoe
Affiliation:
University of St Andrews, Scotland
Annmarie Ryan
Affiliation:
University of Limerick
Stefan Schwarzkopf
Affiliation:
Copenhagen Business School
Pascale Trompette
Affiliation:
Université de Grenoble
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Summary

This chapter is intended as a conversation piece aimed at our fellow Market Studies scholars. The goal is to bring to the fore some of the possibilities and challenges of activities usually grouped under the term market design cause to our field. The argument unfolds in four steps. First, we draw on resources from economic history, economics, and Market Studies that, although in different ways, emphasize engineering in relation to economics and markets. We mobilize them to show how engineering rather than the looser notion of design provides a more precise and productive conceptual starting point for studying the work of market designers. Second, drawing on previous work by the authors, we provide two empirical illustrations of market engineering in action. Third, we combine the conceptual and empirical antecedents to delimit what we mean by the concept of market engineering. Fourth, we explore how market engineering is not only a relatively new problem of analysis for Market Studies scholars, but also challenges central conceptual and analytical habits that characterize research in this community.

Keywords

market engineeringmarket designmarkets
Type
Chapter
Information
Market Studies
Mapping, Theorizing and Impacting Market Action
 , pp. 38 - 50
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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