Dozens of studies in different nations reveal that socioeconomic status only weakly predicts an individual’s subjective well-being (SWB). These effects suggest that although the pursuit of social status is a fundamental human motivation, achieving high status has little impact on...

The 2007-2009 financial crisis was centered on the mortgage industry. This paper develops a distinctly sociological explanation of that crisis based on Fligstein’s (1996) markets as politics approach and the sociology of finance. We use archival and secondary sources to show that the...

This paper investigates the difference in the profiles of university scientists who have founded or advised companies. We analyzed commercial activities of a sample of 6,138 university life scientists and found that the profiles of scientists who become academic entrepreneurs are different from...

Functional theories of reputation imply that individuals’ reputations are tied to their history of behavior. However, indirect evidence suggests that the link between reputation and behavior may be tenuous at best. In three studies we tracked the development of reputations over time among...

This article challenges the widespread notion that spanning recognized categories, or generalism,is disadvantageous. In markets, buyers face the fundamental challenge of gaining insight into the underlying ability of sellers. Economic sociologists rely on theories of categorization to explain...

A standard test for adverse selection in health insurance examines whether people with characteristics predicting high health care utilization are more likely to buy insurance (or buy more generous nsurance). George Akerlof’s theory of adverse selection suggests a test based on prices:...

Why do men have more lenient ethical standards than women? To address this question, we test the male pragmatism hypothesis, which posits that men rely on their social and achievement motivations to set ethical standards more so than women. Across two studies, motivation was both manipulated and...

Sociologists have long been interested in how interactions among the diverse groups that constitute modern societies shape group mobilization efforts, including the use of group media. We advance research on this topic by analyzing the growth of magazines affiliated with religious groups in...

This paper presents the first study of the economic effects of a citywide minimum wage— San Francisco’s adoption of a minimum wage, set at $8.50 in 2004 and $9.14 by 2007. Compared to earlier benchmark studies by Card and Krueger and by Neumark and Wascher, this study surveys...