Emotions in Finance

Emotions in Finance

Economic
Economic Behavior

Defenders of economic orthodoxy often argue that asset inflation results from emotional intrusions into a rational world. But emotions are unavoidable. Rational calculations can be based only on the past. Instability continually arises, especially when money is treated as a financial asset. Money entails claims and credits, and so presumes social relations created from prospective and therefore unknowable promises. Secure rational calculation can only be retrospective; it cannot see or reach beyond the horizon separating the future from the present. Yet financial firms, banks and, increasingly, non-financial firms these days trade everproliferating claims to future income, creating more debt and more uncertainty. Uncertainty can only be dealt with by emotional projections and, since finance is a vital part of economic activity, the fundamental role of emotions deserves serious analysis.
This book looks at the ‘financial heartland’, the major institutions where money is controlled and traded as though it were a predictable commodity.

Jocelyn Pixley

www.cambridge.org/9780521827850

Cambridge University Press

2004

Novita

PDF

English

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