Performativity Rationalized

Francesco Guala ()

Departmental Working Papers from Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at Università degli Studi di Milano

Abstract: Economic sociologists have been criticized for using the term “performativity” in a way that seems unfaithful to Austin’s notion. In this paper I defend this usage against Uskali Mäki’s challenge, in particular his claim that economic theories cannot constitute illocutionary acts. To counter this claim I argue that performative speech acts play primarily a coordinating role by manipulating agents’ beliefs, and this is the same role that theories like the Black-Scholes model of option pricing play in financial markets, if MacKenzie’s historical reconstruction is right.

Keywords: Performativity; Self-fulfilling prophecy; Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-06-06
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