Prices as social facts: A sociological approach to price setting

Fabien Eloire () and Jean Finez ()
Additional contact information
Fabien Eloire: CLERSÉ - Centre Lillois d’Études et de Recherches Sociologiques et Économiques - UMR 8019 - Université de Lille - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
Jean Finez: PACTE - Pacte, Laboratoire de sciences sociales - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes - IEPG - Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA - Institut d'études politiques de Grenoble - UGA - Université Grenoble Alpes

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: This article examines the issue of prices from a sociological standpoint. We show that, contrary to popular belief, price setting is always the result of social practices. We identify two main perspectives in the relevant literature. The first deals with the central notion of quality: price setting is a matter of judgement, arbitration and equipment. The second focuses on measurement practices, such as valuation and pricing, which occur before or during the transaction. These two complementary perspectives reveal a variety of processes that both determine prices and can be used to construct a typology based on two criteria: the moment of price setting, and the level of competition. Four different types of pricing mechanisms are distinguished: self-regulated, administered, composed, and bargained. We use examples to describe these different pricing types, and to show how such an approach contributes to our understanding of the economy

Date: 2023-10-13
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-03816307v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Archives Européennes de Sociologie / European Journal of Sociology, 2023, ⟨10.1017/S0003975623000395⟩

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-03816307v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-03816307

DOI: 10.1017/S0003975623000395

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().