Impersonal efficiency and the dangers of a fully automated securities exchange

This report identifies impersonal efficiency as a driver of market automation during the past four decades, and speculates about the future problems it might pose. The ideology of impersonal efficiency is rooted in a mistrust of financial intermediaries such as floor brokers and specialists. Impersonal efficiency has guided the development of market automation towards transparency and impersonality, at the expense of human trading floors. The result has been an erosion of the informal norms and human judgment that characterize less anonymous markets. We call impersonal efficiency an ideology because we do not think that impersonal markets are always superior to markets built on social ties. This report traces the historical origins of this ideology, considers the problems it has already created in the recent Flash Crash of 2010, and asks what potential risks it might pose in the future

A Study of Neo-Austrian Economics using an Artificial Stock Market

An agent-based artificial financial market (AFM) is used to study market efficiency and learning in the context of the Neo-Austrian economic paradigm. Efficiency is defined in terms of the 'excess' profits associated with different trading strategies, where excess for an active trading strategy is defined relative to a dynamic buy and hold benchmark. We define an Inefficiency matrix that takes into account the difference in excess profits of one trading strategy versus another ('signal') relative to the standard error of those profits ('noise') and use this statistical measure to gauge the degree of market efficiency. A one-parameter family of trading strategies is considered, the value of the parameter measuring the relative 'informational' advantage of one strategy versus another. Efficiency is then investigated in terms of the composition of the market defined in terms of the relative proportions of traders using a particular strategy and the parameter values associated with the strategies. We show that markets are more efficient when informational advantages are small (small signal) and when there are many coexisting signals. Learning is introduced by considering 'copycat' traders that learn the relative values of the different strategies in the market and copy the most successful one. We show how such learning leads to a more informationally efficient market but can also lead to a less efficient market as measured in terms of excess profits. It is also shown how the presence of exogeneous information shocks that change trader expectations increases efficiency and complicates the inference problem of copycats.Neoaustrian economics, Market efficiency, Artificial financial market, Learning, Adaptation

Cultures of care? Animals and science in Britain

It is becoming increasingly common to hear life scientists say that high quality life science research relies upon high quality laboratory animal care. However, the idea that animal care is a crucial part of scientific knowledge production is at odds with previous social science and historical scholarship regarding laboratory animals. How are we to understand this discrepancy? To begin to address this question, this paper seeks to disentangle the values of scientists in identifying animal care as important to the production of high quality scientific research. To do this, we conducted a survey of scientists working in the United Kingdom who use animals in their research. The survey found that being British is associated with thinking that animal care is a crucial part of conducting high quality science. To understand this finding, we draw upon the concept of ‘civic epistemologies’ (Jasanoff 2005; Prainsack 2006) and argue that ‘animals’ and ‘care’ in Britain may converge in taken-for-granted assumptions about what constitutes good scientific knowledge. These ideas travel through things like state regulations or the editorial policies of science journals, but do not necessarily carry the embodied civic epistemology of ‘animals’ and ‘science’ from which such modes of regulating laboratory animal welfare comes

Factores que favorecen la movilidad social en los aprendices del Sena – Santa Marta durante los años 2013 - 2014

Este trabajo corresponde a un estudio descriptivo de corte cuantitativo, que toma como fuente información secundaria correspondiente a una base de datos de un grupo de 2115 aprendices del SENA de la ciudad de Santa Marta Colombia en los años 2013 y 2014, todos ellos identificados por el gobierno nacional como pertenecientes a población vulnerable. Este estudio tuvo como objetivo identificar los factores que favorecen la Movilidad Social de estos aprendices, teniendo en cuenta su condición social como población Sisben y Desplazados. Para lograr esta identificación se revisaron postulados teóricos de investigaciones de expertos que han estudiado la Movilidad Social en varios países, especialmente en América Latina y particularmente en Colombia. Con base en los resultados de los estudios consultados se determinó cuales con los factores que inciden en la Movilidad Social de los aprendices sujetos de estudio. Con el fin de mejorar el análisis de los resultados se realizó una contextualización del SENA, así como una descripción detallada de los aprendices objeto de estudio. Así mismo se revisaron las políticas sociales actuales en todos los niveles del estado en relación a la educación superior y el empleo en los jóvenes pertenecientes a la población en extrema pobreza y vulnerabilidad. También se revisaron programas sociales para jóvenes promovidos por el gobierno como Jóvenes en Acción en los que participan los jóvenes aprendices. Finalmente se consultaron e incluyeron en el documento dos estudios de años recientes del mercado laboral realizados en la ciudad de Santa Marta con el fin de complementar el análisis de los resultados

Computerising gentlemen: the automation of the London Stock Exchange, c. 1945-1995

This dissertation concerns the development of market information technologies in the London Stock Exchange, c. 1945-1992. Based on archival research in London, Cambridge and Edinburgh, and 20 semistructured interviews with former technologists, brokers, and marketmakers, my dissertation identifies the social, technological and institutional factors that allowed dealings in bonds and equities to move off the trading floor of the Stock Exchange and onto competing electronic platforms. My dissertation utilises the history of market information technologies as an occasion for producing a multi-layered analysis of the material, social, and regulatory transformations of finance in the City of London between c. 1945 and the mid 1990s. In particular, my dissertation deals with the rise of the so-called ‘information age’ in relation to British finance. The analysis is carried out in three parts, each tackling a specific ‘myth’ on the role of information and communication technologies in contemporary finance. The first part (chapters 3-4) deals with the dematerialisation of finance, demonstrating the often ignored character of technologies, materialities and their associated expertise in the constitution of the market. The second part (chapter 5) deconstructs the concept of disintermediation by analysing the social history of broking and jobbing in post-war City of London. Specifically, this part argues that changes in financial practices amongst the membership of the Stock Exchange were neither determined by the adoption of computers nor defined by a pre-existing culture of gentlemanly capitalism. Rather, they derived from the adaptation of market participants to a changing economic and social environment. The third part of this thesis (chapter 6) engages with deregulation. In particular, it provides an account of three broad patterns of financial regulation in Britain and the emergence of the current understanding of financial markets as manageable entities. The dissertation finalises by exploring the role of ‘informational metaphors’ in mediating the practices, materialities and regulations of the London Stock Exchange

La formación en democracia deliberativa en la escuela desde la modernidad líquida

En la monografía se busca indagar sobre el concepto de democracia deliberativa en la actual modernidad líquida y su incidencia en la formación ciudadana de los nuevos ciudadanos para la consolidación de una nueva cultura política que sea deliberativa.This monograh looks into discursive democracy concept in the current liquid modernity and its impact in the citizeneducation of new citizens to the consolidation of a new political culture that is discursive.Magíster en Estudios PolíticosMaestrí

Modelo de degeneración discal en cola de rata: aislamiento vascular de los platillos vertebrales

Existen diversas hipótesis que explican el desencadenamiento del proceso de degeneración del disco intervertebral, uno de los cuales es la disminución del aporte de nutrientes al mismo. La falta de modelos experimentales de obtención de muestras con degeneración controlada es un problema para el estudio de esta patología. Objetivos El objetivo de este estudio es demostrar si la falta de flujo vascular al disco intervertebral provoca degeneración del mismo, en qué medida lo provoca según el tipo de deprivación aplicado y si el tiempo transcurrido determina el grado de degeneración provocado. Desarrollamos un modelo de degeneración de disco intervertebral que pretende responder a estas cuestiones

Markets as mirrors

This paper queries the conventional conceptualization of markets as networks, institutions, and performative realizations by presenting them as cultural mirrors that reflect the quirks and modes of social organization of their environments. Extending the Weberian metaphor of markets as communities, and combining these with recent anthropological theories of kinship, the paper argues for understanding market processes as sites for the production of social relations rather than merely impersonal transactions. Using discussions of settlement and trading in contemporary financial markets as an example, the article advocates rethinking the role and ontology of markets in modern life.Este artigo interroga a conceitualização convencional dos mercados como redes, instituições e realizações performativas ao apresentá-los como espelhos culturais que refletem as idiossincrasias e modos de organização social de seus ambientes. Estendendo a metáfora weberiana do mercado como comunidades, e combinando-a com recentes teorias antropológicas do parentesco, o artigo propõe compreender processos de mercado como espaços de produção de relações sociais ao invés de transações meramente impessoais. Utilizando discussões a respeito de compensação e trocas nos mercados financeiros contemporâneos como um exemplo, o artigo defende repensar o papel e a ontologia dos mercados na vida moderna