But... Do you think that the models were the "engine" of the change, as the book title suggests? The development of Taylorism was an important element in the transformation of 20th century manufacturing, but it was, I would argue, a response to the needs of capital at that time. If capital after 1970 had different needs than they in fact had, then maybe these models would have been ignored(?)
On 7/29/2012 12:43 PM, Doug Henwood wrote: > > My first job out of college was working for a Bell Labs physicist who'd left > the field for Wall Street. His idea was to apply computer modeling to the > pricing of listed options, which had just started trading. He'd do a run > every morning via some timesharing arrangement with an MIT guy that > identified under- and overpriced options using the Black-Scholes model > (published in 1973). I used to hand-deliver some to clients around Wall > Street, then come back and use my rudimentary Fortran skills to work on other > pricing models. It was slow and very obscure. Almost no one listened to him - > he had like 10 subscribers in 1975. Clearly, the ability to do that sort of > thing in real time right at your desk has made an enormous difference - and > now you don't even need human traders to enter the orders. > > Doug _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
