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Fiscal & Economic Sociology

This research examines the political economy of housing and credit in the United States.

The Home Equity Project, a new project with UW Sociology Graduate Student Jessica Warren. This is an interview-based study of how older homeowners think about the equity in their homes, and how they plan to use it.

Political Economy Rebooted, an interdisciplinary volume co-edited with Marion Fourcade and Greta Krippner.

American Bonds: How Credit Markets Shaped a Nation, Princeton University Press, 2019.

"The Longue Durée of Finance: New Research on Old Financial Markets." With Francisca Gómez Baeza, and Devin Collins. Annual Review of Sociology, 2025.

“Gifts, Grifts, and Gambles: The Social Logics of the Small Business Administration Relief Loan Programs.” In Pandemic Exposures: Economy and Society in the Time of Coronavirus, Didier Fassin and Marion Fourcade (eds). HAU Books, University of Chicago Press.

“A Modern Financial Tool-kit”: Lessons from Berle for a More Democratic Financial System.” With Mark Igra, and Selen Güler. In Democratizing Finance: Restructuring Credit to Transform Society, Fred Block and Robert Hockett (eds). Verso. 

“On the Sociological Approach to Public Finance” Economic Sociology: The European Electronic Newsletter. 21(2): 12-14 (2020)

“When All Social Problems Become Financial Problems.” Law and Political Economy (blog post). Published online November 20, 2020

Interview (with Barbara Kiviat). Accounts: Newsletter for the Economic Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association. Spring/Summer: 8-11.

““The Miracles of Bookkeeping”: How Budget Politics Link Fiscal Policies and Financial Markets" American Journal of Sociology, 2017.

American Statecraft

This research seeks to explain how government officials design and manage complex or indirect policies, which are frequently implemented through private actors and firms. A series of co-authored papers use case studies to address how they such policies are implemented, and why they are so frequently overlooked.

Writings on this topic include:

“Defining the State from Within: Boundaries, Schemas, and Associational Policymaking” with Damon Mayrl. This article in Sociological Theory  analyzes an associational educational policy to identify mechanisms that govern how officials classify hybrid programs as appropriately belonging or not belonging to the state.

“Beyond the Hidden American State: Rethinking Government Visibility”(with Damon Mayrl). A chapter in The Many Hands of the State: Theorizing Political Authority and Social Control, edited by Ann Orloff and Kimberly Morgan (Cambridge University Press) that analyzes fights over an associational health policy to show how classification struggles can render complex policies more or less visible.

Morality & Classification

Research on the moralization and classification of markets, bodies, and deaths, with the goal of better understanding how culture influences social fields.

“Gender, Loss, and the Erosion of Bodily Capital: A Study with Women Diagnosed with Late Stage Breast Cancer.” With Sara McClelland and Lynne Gerber. Women’s Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 51:7, 819-840. Drawing from women diagnosed with late-stage breast cancer, this article considers the gendered experience of body loss and associated forms of social status,

“The Transformation of Morals in Markets: Death, Benefits, and the Exchange of Life Insurance Policies.” American Journal of Sociology, 2008. This article uses content analysis and interviews to show how position within a field influences morality. Reprinted in The Sociology of Economic Life (Granovetter and Swedberg, eds., Third Edition).

“Blue Chip Bodies, Fat Phobia, and the Cultural Economy of Body Size.” With Lynne Gerber. Shows how moralization of body size varies depending on a person's social position and resources; this is illustrated through a comparison of the work of Oprah Winfrey, Morgan Spurlock, and Pat Robertson.