Morality & modelling in a Wall Street trading room

In the wake of the Global Financial Crisis, policy-makers, citizens and critics demanded to know more about what went on inside financial institutions that generated such devastation. In his new book, Taking the Floor: Models, Morals and Management in a Wall Street Trading Room, Daniel Beunza (Cass Business School, London) draws on more than a decade of close ethnographic research in Wall Street, to look at how economic modelling and moral judgement interact, potentially resulting in predatory lending and systemic risk. Beunza’s book breaks new ground in cultural economy and the social studies of finance, by highlighting this interface of morality and models in markets. At this event, he discusses the book with CUSP co-investigator Will Davies, Co-Director of PERC, and explore the implications of his analysis for economic sociology, financial reform and sustainable prosperity.

A podcast of the conversation is available below or via Soundcloud directly.