Section: Research Student Profiles

Taylor Spears

Name
Taylor Spears
Organisation
Sociology, School of Social and Political Science
University of Edinburgh
Address
Chrystal Macmillan Building 15a George Square Edinburgh UK EH8 9LD
E-Mail
Research Interests
Social Studies of Finance,Sociology of Knowledge,Sociology of technology,Derivatives Markets
URL
http://www.sociology.ed.ac.uk/research_students/taylor_spears
Taylor Spears

PhD Title

"The social and organisational shaping of financial valuation practices: a study of the interest rate derivatives market"

PhD Supervisor:

Donald MacKenzie 

Research Profile: 

My current research lies at the intersection of sociology and finance and draws upon literature from economic sociology, science & technology studies, and socio-legal studies. I'm generally interested in developing an empirical account of how market participants come to agreement over the value of abstract financial products, especially for those products that are highly customised and aren't traded on public exchanges.

For my PhD thesis, I am studying the community of "quants'' and financial engineers who value interest-rate derivative contracts, the largest group of over-the-counter products in existence. This community comprises a motley group of physicists, mathematicians, traders, and attorneys working in both academia and financial institutions who are responsible for developing models and evaluation practices for valuing a wide range of financial contracts whose value depends on changes in market interest rates. I'm principally interested in the social dynamics underlying the development, selection, and use of valuation practices in this field. For instance, I'm interested in:

  • Explaining and understanding the emergence of the interest rates market as distinct from the bond market during the 1980s, and the role of valuation practices in stabilising the cognitive separation between these fields.
  • Understanding the relationship between advances in interest-rate derivatives valuation and developments in the "technical legal infrastructure" that underlies OTC derivative contracts (e.g. the ISDA collateral regime). 
  • How communities of practitioners protect themselves against the more pathological properties of financial models; for instance, the fact that a model's predictions can be subject to self-falsification, especially when it is novel and is undergoing rapid adoption.
  • How the present financial crisis is reshaping current market valuation practices. 

Funding Sources (current and previous):

  • ESRC Project on "The Development and Exploitation of Financial Innovation" (2012 - 2013)
  • Research Studentship, College of Humanities and Social Science, University of Edinburgh (2010 - 2013)
  • Scottish Overseas Research Student Award (2010 - 2013)
  • Fulbright Scholarship to the United Kingdom (2008 - 2009)

Research Experience:

  • Research Fellow, SPRU - Science and Technology Policy Research, University of Sussex (2009 - 2010)  

Qualifications:

  • MSc, with distinction (SPRU at the University of Sussex)
  • BS, summa cum laude (Arizona State University) 
 

This page was published on 1 May 2012


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