Beyond the Market launches a sociological investigation into economic efficiency. Prevailing economic theory, which explains efficiency using formalized rational choice models, often simplifies human behavior to the point of distortion. Jens Beckert finds such theory to be particularly weak in explaining such crucial forms of economic behavior as cooperation, innovation, and action under conditions of uncertainty--phenomena he identifies as the proper starting point for a sociology of economic action.

Beckert levels an enlightened critique at neoclassical economics,...

How to regulate the transfer of wealth from one generation to the next has been hotly debated among politicians, legal scholars, sociologists, economists, and philosophers for centuries. Bequeathing wealth is a vital ingredient of family solidarity. But does the reproduction of social inequality through inheritance square with the principle of equal opportunity? Does democracy suffer when family wealth becomes political power?

The first in-depth, comparative study of the development of inheritance law in the United States, France, and Germany, Inherited Wealth...

Clignet's analysis of inheritance patterns in modern America is the first sustained treatment of the subject by a sociologist. Clignet shows that even today inheritance serves to perpetuate both familial wealth and familial relations. He examines what leads decedents to chose particular legal instruments (wills, trusts, insurance policies, gifts inter vivos) and how, in turn, the instrument chosen helps explain the extent and the form of inequalities in bequests, of a result of the gender or matrimonial status of the beneficiaries. The author's major is to identify and explain the most...

How do we place value on goods - and, importantly, why? Valuation and pricing are core issues in the market economy, but understanding of these concepts and their interrelation is weak. In response, The Worth of Goods takes a sociological approach to the perennial but timely question of what makes a product valuable.
Structured in three parts, it first examines value in the broader sense - moral values and how they are formed, and the relations between economic and non-economic values - discussing such matters as the value of an oil spill, the price of a scientific paper, value in ethical...

Theorie und Gesellschaft§Herausgegeben von Jens Beckert, Rainer Forst, Wolfgang Knöbl, Frank Nullmeier und Shalini Randeria§Kaum eine Institution ist für die Reproduktion sozialer Ungleichheit so bedeutsam wie die Vererbung von Vermögen. Doch Erbschaften widersprechen dem Leistungsprinzip, mit dem in modernen Gesellschaften soziale Ungleichheit gerechtfertigt wird. Wie gehen wir mit diesem Widerspruch um? Welche Kontroversen entspannen sich um die Vermögensvererbung? Welche normativen Ansprüche werden im Erbrecht reguliert? Mit Bezug auf die Erbschaftssteuer, das Pflichtteilsrecht und...