TY - JOUR

T1 - Back to basics on economic value

T2 - Review article of Dave Elder-Vass's Inventing Value: The Social Construction of Monetary Worth, Cambridge University Press, 2022

AU - Sayer, Andrew

PY - 2023/9/1

Y1 - 2023/9/1

N2 - The paper discusses concepts of economic value via a review of Dave Elder-Vass’s book Inventing Value. Setting the review in the context of the need to re-evaluate theories of economic value in light of the environmental crisis, it outlines and assesses the book’s critical realist approach to the subject, its critiques of existing value theories, the alternative offered by the author—‘the social construction of monetary worth’—and its application to the valuation of financial assets. It goes on to discuss whether economic value can be said to be ‘invented’, the relation between positive and normative theories of value, and what can be salvaged from existing theories of value. It ends by briefly summarising where value theory in the context of the wider economy might go from here.

AB - The paper discusses concepts of economic value via a review of Dave Elder-Vass’s book Inventing Value. Setting the review in the context of the need to re-evaluate theories of economic value in light of the environmental crisis, it outlines and assesses the book’s critical realist approach to the subject, its critiques of existing value theories, the alternative offered by the author—‘the social construction of monetary worth’—and its application to the valuation of financial assets. It goes on to discuss whether economic value can be said to be ‘invented’, the relation between positive and normative theories of value, and what can be salvaged from existing theories of value. It ends by briefly summarising where value theory in the context of the wider economy might go from here.

U2 - 10.1093/cpe/bzad016

DO - 10.1093/cpe/bzad016

M3 - Journal article

VL - 42

SP - 101

EP - 116

JO - Contributions to Political Economy

JF - Contributions to Political Economy

SN - 0277-5921

IS - 1

ER -