This paper addresses the question of what role morally oriented behavior plays in the efficiency of market outcomes. This issue is as controversial in economics as it is in sociology. To get a better understanding of the problems and opportunities involved in morally oriented behavior in...

What do we value? For markets to operate and for economies to grow, producers must attract purchasers to the products they offer. In advanced capitalist economies, market saturation and decline of demand are constant threats to markets. But how do we understand why actors desire the things whose...

Auch die Wirtschaft moderner Gesellschaften folgt nicht einfach einer ökonomischen Eigengesetzlichkeit, sondern konstituiert sich aus ihrer Einbettung in ein Gefüge sittlicher Werte, Interessen und sozialer Macht. Von welcher theoretischen Grundlage lässt sich die Sittlichkeit der Wirtschaft...

Starting from the assumption that decision situations in economic contexts are characterized by fundamental uncertainty, the paper argues that the decision-making of intentionally rational actors is anchored in fictions. “Fictionality” in economic action is the inhabitation in the mind of an...

Capitalism is an economic and social order oriented toward the future. In this paper, I describe the unfolding of the temporal order of capitalism and relate it to the restless dynamism of capitalism we have observed since the Industrial Revolution. Since the future is open, actors are...

The article provides an overview of the state of the art of sociological research on price formation. The dominant trait of the sociological approach to prices is to understand price formation not as the outcome of individual preferences but as the result of the social and political forces...

Der Beitrag reflektiert theoretisch die gegenwärtige Finanz- und Wirtschaftskrise, wobei die Ausführungen im Zusammenhang mit bestehenden Krisentheorien stehen. Meine These ist, dass die Krisentheorien der "Unregierbarkeit" und des "Spätkapitalismus" darin falsch lagen, den Ausgangspunkt von...

What alternatives to rational choice theory do exist to explain economic phenomena? I argue that American pragmatism presents a viable alternative for the explanation of key economic incidences. First I illustrate the foundations of pragmatism using three problems regularly encountered in action...

Seit 1906 besteht in Deutschland eine Erbschaftssteuer auf föderaler Ebene. Der mit ihr erzielte Anteil am Gesamtsteuereinkommen ist historisch immer niedrig gewesen und liegt zurzeit bei unter einem Prozent. Im internationalen Vergleich besteuern Länder wie Frankreich, die USA und England...

The regulation of the transfer of property mortis causa has been a major concern of social reformers since the Enlightenment. Today, by contrast, the issue of the bequest of wealth from generation to generation stirs hardly any political controversy. Since the mid-twentieth century the topic has...