Valuing the Unique: The Economics of Singularities

Abstract

This book focuses on singularities defined as goods and services that cannot be analysed by standard methods because quality is multidimensional, incommensurable, and uncertain. Examples include luxury goods, music, artworks, fine wine, lawyers, and doctors, etc. This recent contribution to economic sociology was originally published in French in 2007 and then translated for the present edition. The book is organised in four parts. The first part introduces the issue. The second part focuses on the judgment devices that help consumers make choices when singularities are at stake. The third part details different types of economic regimes that organise the market of singularities. Eventually, the fourth part focuses on an historical study of the economics of singularities in a context of democratic individualism. One major positive aspect of the book is its quality in analysing a range of markets for which singularities matter. The author provides many details about the functioning of some of these markets. In particular, the analyses of markets for music, restaurants, and lawyers are extremely precise and colourful. The insistence on various coordination regimes illustrates how differences between markets are as important as their similarities underlined by the ‘mainstream’ economics. The last part of the book focusing on the historical study of singularities is really interesting when considerations about individualism are deciphered with the concept of singularities. In particular, the conditions under which singularities are in danger of losing their uniqueness shed lights on a modern process linked to new technologies and internet that changes cultural practices and consumers perception.