title: Legitimacy and status groups in financial markets.
abstract: Economic sociologists have argued that financial markets should be analysed as uncertainty-processing social networks and intermediary groups. Networks and intermediaries alone cannot confer legitimacy upon financial actors and transactions. Status groups are a solution to this problem. They emphasize reputation, honour and good social behaviour as stabilizers of collective action, as means of social control and as indicators of legitimacy. I examine here the emergence and evolution of status groups of brokers in London, New York and Paris, and show how emphasis on honour was used to legitimize financial transactions. I argue that financial markets should be conceived as networks, intermediary and status groups. In global, automated financial markets status groups like securities analysts are gaining in prominence.
authors.affiliation: Sociology, University of Edinburgh. a.preda@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Alex
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Preda
mesh_terms: D030861:Capitalism; D003132:Commerce / Q000266:history* / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000639:trends; D004465:Economic Competition / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D005381:Financing, Organized / Q000191:economics* / Q000592:standards; D006608:Hierarchy, Social; D049670:History, 17th Century; D049671:History, 18th Century; D049672:History, 19th Century; D049673:History, 20th Century; D049674:History, 21st Century; D006801:Humans; D008131:London; D009518:New York; D010297:Paris; D012923:Social Class; D012944:Social Support