The institutional embeddedness of market failure: Why speculative bubbles still occur

Abstract

This article identifies the institutional factors behind both the emergence of a highly vulnerable financial system and the housing bubble that devastated it. The underlying premise is that the financial crisis was a market failure embedded in and caused by an institutional one. The failing institutions were academic, political and regulatory. The article shows how these institutions were fatally undermined, suggesting limits to the rationalization of finance capitalism. The perspective on financial crisis developed here recognizes the pressing need for reform of the financial markets, and also recommends institutional reforms as critical protections against future system failure.

Citation

Abolafia, M.Y. (2010), "The institutional embeddedness of market failure: Why speculative bubbles still occur", Lounsbury, M. and Hirsch, P.M. (Ed.) Markets on Trial: The Economic Sociology of the U.S. Financial Crisis: Part B (Research in the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 30 Part B), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 177-200. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X(2010)000030B010