This collection of essays rediscovers the physical space that markets inhabit and explores how political, social, and economic factors determine the shape of a particular market space. The essays present new research from the fields of geography, economics, political economy, and planning and show how markets are contested, constructed, and placed.

In his first book, the former New York governor and current CNN cohost offers a manifesto on the economy and the public interest. As New York State Attorney General from 1998 to 2006, Eliot Spitzer successfully pursued corporate crime, including stock price inflation, securities fraud, and predatory lending practices. Drawing on those experiences, in this book Spitzer considers when and how the government should intervene in the workings of the market. The 2009 American bank bailout, he argues, was the wrong way: it understandably turned government intervention into a flashpoint for public disgust because it socialized risk, privatized benefit, and left standing institutions too big to fail, incompetent regulators, and deficient corporate governance. That's unfortunate, because good regulatory policy, he claims, can make markets and firms work efficiently, equitably, and in service of fundamental public values. Spitzer lays out the right reasons for government intervention in the market: to guarantee transparency, to overcome market failures, and to guard our core values against the market's unfair biases such as racism. With specific proposals to serve those ends—from improving corporate governance to making firms responsible for their own risky behavior—he offers a much-needed blueprint for the proper role of government in the market. Finally, taking account of regulatory changes since the crash of 2008, he suggests how to rebuild public trust in government so real change is possible. Responses to Spitzer by Sarah Binder, Andrew Gelman, and John Sides, Dean Baker, and Robert Johnson, raise issues of politics, ideology, and policy.

This book examines place and place-making in London’s Borough Market. In particular, it uses topo/graphy (‘place-writing) to interrogate the ways in which Borough Market’s material, social-sensual and discursive relations assemble to reproduce Borough Market as a place, market and marketplace. Its central premise is that market-processes – the negotiation and exchange of commodities –are place-processes. This means that the often-abstract relationships that ultimately define what we think of as the economy are embedded in the rich and every materiality, sociality, sensuality and meanings associated with place. By tracing out these different elements, topo/graphy illustrates the ways in which economic reproduction is grounded in particular and often discrete practices. However, by assembling them together, this highlights the ways in which place and place-making are the driving force behind the economy at large.

Markets are usually discussed in abstract terms, as an economic organizing principle, a generalized alternative to government planning, or even as powerful actors in their own right, able to shape local and national economic destinies. But markets are not abstract. Even as the idea of the market seduces politicians around the world to take advantage of their abstract qualities, they constantly run up against material reality. Markets are always somewhere, in place, and it is in place that the smooth theories of markets falter and fail. More than simply being embedded in particular places, markets necessarily emerge in the various political, social, cultural, and environmental relations that exist in and between places. Markets shape places, but the reverse is also true. This collection of essays approaches markets from the ground up, and from a part of the world often still regarded as peripheral to global capitalism: the South Pacific. With a wide variety of case studies, including on indigenous economies, childcare, agriculture, wine, electricity metering, finance, education, and housing, the authors show how complex local, social and cultural politics matter to how markets are made within and between places, and the insights that can be gleaned from studying markets in this part of the world. They explore the way superficially similar markets work out differently in different places, and why, as well as examining how market relations are constructed in places outside and on the edges of the centres of Western capitalism, and what this says back to how markets are understood in those centres. The book will be of particular interest to scholars and students working in and between economic geography, cultural economy, political economy, economic sociology, and more.

Exploring the Architecture of Place in America's Public and Farmers Markets draws attention to the simple but elusive architectural space of public and farmers markets. It discusses three seminal types of markets--heritage building, open-air pavilion, and pop-up canopy-- demonstrating the characteristics of each type using a mixture of narrative and illustration. The narrative combines historically informed architectural observation with interview material drawn from conversations the author has had over the years with market managers, vendors, and shoppers. The illustrations include an appealing variety of photos, diagrams, and drawings that enabled the author to view each market through an architectural lens based on eight scales of measure--the hand, the container, the person, the stall, a grouping of stalls, the street, the block, and the market's situation within the neighborhood. Some of the architectural elements discussed include walls that layer, openings that frame, roofs that encompass, and niches that embrace. While each of the case studies illustrates shared characteristics of one of the architectural typologies, each farmers market is distinct in the specific ways it reflects the local culture and environment. Ultimately, in viewing markets through these three types and eight scales of measure we are able to better appreciate how farmers markets foster social interaction and community engagement. The book concludes with a broad look at the way of life and living that public and farmers markets have spawned, while looking ahead to what the author sees as an emerging new typology - the mobile market - which takes the bounty of local farmers to neighborhoods underserved with fresh healthy food, and otherwise known as food deserts. Market vendors speak enthusiastically about the qualitative benefits that farming life allows, and the greater good their individual choice provides for the general public and region. Likewise, a spectrum of governmental, commerce and community leaders champion the economic development farmers markets catalyze through allied business development and civic commitment.

Challenging the prevailing idea that labor markets are governed by universal economic processes, this significant work argues instead that labor markets develop in tandem with social and political institutions, and thus function in locally specific ways. Focusing on the complex social processes that lie at the heart of the labor market, the author offers a provocative new perspective and proposes new ways of conducting research in the area.

This collection of essays examines the operation of the market for learned books in Early Modern Europe through a series of case studies. After an overview of general market conditions, issues raised by the transmission of knowledge and the economics of the book trade are addressed. These include the selection of copy, the role of legal and religious controls in the production and diffusion of texts, the paths open to authors to achieve publication, the finances and interaction of publishing houses, the margins of the European book trade in England and Portugal, and the development of bibliographical tools to assist purchasers in their pursuit of scholarly works.