Uncertain Futures Imaginaries, Narratives, and Calculation in the Economy

Uncertain Futures considers how economic actors visualize the future and decide how to act in conditions of radical uncertainty. It starts from the premise that dynamic capitalist economies are characterized by relentless innovation and novelty and hence exhibit an indeterminacy that cannot be reduced to measurable risk. The organizing question then becomes how economic actors form expectations and make decisions despite the uncertainty they face.

This edited volume lays the foundations for a new model of economic reasoning by showing how, in conditions of uncertainty, economic actors combine calculation with imaginaries and narratives to form fictional expectations that coordinate action and provide the confidence to act. It draws on groundbreaking research in economic sociology, economics, anthropology, and psychology to present theoretically grounded empirical case studies. These demonstrate how grand narratives, central bank forward guidance, economic forecasts, finance models, business plans, visions of technological futures, and new era stories influence behaviour and become instruments of power in markets and societies. The market impact of shared calculative devices, social narratives, and contingent imaginaries underlines the rationale for a new form of narrative economics.

Jens Beckert is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne. He studied sociology and business administration at the Freie Universitat Berlin and the New School for Social Research in New York. Beckert was a visiting fellow at the Sociology Department of Princeton University in 1994/95 and at the Center for European Studies of Harvard University in 2001/02. In 2007/08 he was a Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. In 2012/13 he was a resident at the Institut d1etudes avancees in Paris and in 2015/16 visiting researcher at SciencesPo in Paris.
His research focuses on the fields of economic sociology, sociology of inheritance, organization theory, and social theory.

Richard Bronk is a visiting fellow in the European Institute at the London School of Economic and Political Science. Educated at Merton College, Oxford where he gained a first-class degree in Literae Humaniores, he then spent seventeen years in the City of London - including senior positions in fund management and as Adviser on European capital markets at the Bank of England. From 2000-2007, Bronk was a Teaching Fellow at the European Institute, LSE - lecturing on varieties of capitalism and European political economy. His research now focuses on the role of imagination and language in economics, the dangers of analytical and regulatory monocultures, and the epistemology of markets. His approach to philosophy of economics is grounded in a history of ideas perspective and in his practical experience in markets and economic policy.

1. An Introduction to Uncertain Futures, Jens Beckert and Richard Bronk
Section I: The Nature of Expectations in Modern Political Economies
2. Expectations, Narratives, and Socio-Economic Regimes, Robert Boyer
3. Conviction Narrative Theory and Understanding Decision-Making in Economics and Finance, David Tuckett
4. Arctic Futures: Expectations, Interests, Claims, and the Making of Arctic Territory, Jenny Andersson
Section II: The Strange World of Economic Forecasting
5. The Interactional Foundations of Economic Forecasting, Werner Reichmann
6. Escaping the Reality Test: How Macroeconomic Forecasters Deal with 'Errors', Olivier Pilmis
7. Uncertainty in Macroeconomic Modelling, Andrew G. Haldane
Section III: The Role of Narratives and Planning in Central Banking
8. A Tractable Future: Central Banks in Conversation with their Publics, Douglas R. Holmes
9. Central Bank Planning? Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Price of Bending the Yield Curve, Benjamin Braun
Section IV: Constructing Futures in Finance
10. Predicted Uncertainty: Volatility Calculus and the Indeterminacy of the Future, Elena Esposito
11. Uncertain Meanings of Risk: Calculative Practices and Risk Conceptions in Credit Rating Agencies, Natalia Besedovsky
Section V: Managing Expectations in Innovative Business
12. Processing the Future: Venture Project Evaluation at American Research and Development Corporation (1946-1973), Martin Giraudeau
13. Discounting and the Making of the Future: On Uncertainty in Forest Management and Drug Development, Liliana Doganova
14. The Dilemma between Aligned Expectations and Diversity in Innovation: Evidence from Early Energy Technology Policies, Timur Ergen