Crawford Spence

Surely all good research is 'hobbyist' in some way. The attack on research per se, with constantly repurposed justifications, across UK universities just now is extremely disconcerting.

I'm hiring two Post-Doctoral Fellows in International Political Economy/Economic Sociology as part of the ADD project funded by the Velux Foundation. The posts are linked to an AI Sustainability package led by Christina Lioma at KU and me at CBS, drawing insights from comp sci & political economy.

Beyond Irrationality: How Social Networks and Structures Shape Financial Markets by Crawford Spence* There is plenty of work out there on financial intermediaries. Most of this can be found in finance or economics journals and displays little evidence of its authors having spen…

Beyond Irrationality. @yuvalmillo.bsky.social @profcrawfordspence.bsky.social & James J. Valentine astutely show in their new excellent book how exactly social networks and structures shape financial markets and asset management. economicsociology.org/2025/09/06/b...

Hmmm, I think we always expected the international student bubble to burst because of demand side factors, not because the govt started making it nigh impossible for them to come here.

Even the Mexican option sounds expensive

Algorithmic Cultures In person event hosted by King's Business School

Fantastic 1-day workshop at King's College London on 6th June on 'Algorithmic Cultures'. Talks by Neil Pollock, Alex Preda, David Chen, Stella Pachidi, Louise Amoore, Christian Borch, Anne Krüger, Gerry McGivern, Yuval Millo and Prikanya Pandey. Sign up here. www.kcl.ac.uk/events/algor...

Our new book, Inertia: Purposeful Inefficiencies in Financial Markets will be launched at the LSE 5-7pm, Wed 26th March. Our discussants will be:

Ken Lee, Loughborough University
Michael Power, London School of Economics

If you wish to attend, sign up here - lnkd.in/eBVc47kZ

Calling all professions scholars! We are running a one day conference on 'Professions and Professionals During Times of Disruption' at Bath University on 20th May. There will also be a PhD workshop on the 19th. The event is free so early registration is advised.
www.bath.ac.uk/events/profe...

This just landed! Get 30% off with discount code CUP30 at this link: cup.columbia.edu/book/inertia...

Great review of our new Book Inertia here. Robin Powell captures the essence of the book very well and super concisely. Somehow wish I had thought of putting a snail on the front cover now...
www.evidenceinvestor.com/post/the-pur...

That is one hell of a juxtaposition

The financial sector benefits those who work in finance primarily. What this article doesn’t show is that asset managers make money even when they don’t realise investment gains, which makes the system even more perverse

Newsflash: universities slowly start to realise that buying their own research from publishers might not make economic sense

"True price" has always been a fantasy pushed by financial economics. "Intrinsic value" and "fundamental value" are others

Underlying this story is that hoary old canard of 'fundamental' value. As if there was an accurate price of a stock to be uncovered somehow. The retreat from pricey equities is interesting but caveat emptor to those who might follow the mass rush of fund managers into the bond markets

Inertia | Columbia University Press Financial professionals are paid as if they were capable of “beating the market” on a regular basis. In fact, active fund managers routinely underperform... | CUP

Inertia is out! The culmination of work with Yuval Millo and Jim Valentine since 2019 where we have explored the ways in which actors in financial markets tend to get stuck into habitual, routinized patterns that undermine that sacred cow of market efficiency. cup.columbia.edu/book/a/97802...

Note to self: start submitting papers to IPE journals

Away days and field trips

New article with co-authors Erica Pimentel and Emilio Boulianne where we explore what happens when audit (traditional profession) confronts blockchain (fintech disruptors). 2 very different world views come to the fore which makes for an interesting epistemic clash. www.emerald.com/insight/cont...

A further reminder of how pointless, mercenary and warped the academic publishing business is, where universities have to spend enormous amounts of money buying their own research back from big publishing houses

Does Copenhagen have the best business school in Europe? Constantly impressed by the vibrant atmosphere in both the accounting and the organization departments here

Just received the fabulous news that I won a fully funded PhD studentship from LISS in partnership with the ICAEW to look at the collapse of public sector financial reporting and audit in the UK. Just need to find a student now to take it up starting Oct 2025

“Varieties of ‘Varieties of…’: a meta analysis”, by Rasmus Corlin Christensen, Socio-Economic Review, forthcoming, 2026

Just when I was losing faith in the bbc for the 1000th time, their foreign correspondent Lyse Doucet pulls the ultimate Gramsci quote out of the bag to describe Syria: “the old is dying but the new is struggling to be born. Now is the time of monsters”

Fabulous day at NEOMA business school in Paris today talking about AI and the future of audit. Nice community of scholars and great insights from Pierre Lescoat, Mariann Gyorke, Elise Berlinski and Marc Lenglet among others.

I thought this was supposed to be better than Twitter. Within a minute of signing up I was already being followed by a porn bot!