The proposed research consists of a study of the interrelation of political competition and economic knowledge in the design and implementation of deregulated electricity markets in the U.S. INTELLECTUAL MERIT It will therefore bridge the literature on the performativity of economics and the older and broader economic sociology of the construction of market institutions. Using a combination of methods, the research will reconstruct the process by which existing electricity markets were designed by analyzing the work of economists within their field, the field of politics over electricity deregulation, and then considering the political coalitions that are formed across these two domains. The eventual configuration of the new electricity markets will be related to this simultaneously scientific and political process. Economists involved in the area of the design of electricity markets will be identified, and data will be collected on their scientific standing, institutional location, ties to government and private-sector clients, in order to locate them in an overall structure of this field. Of these, roughly 30-40 will be subjects of open-ended interviews dealing with their professional careers and their stances on the key controversies of the design of electricity markets. Data will also be collected on the politics of market design in this area, by identifying organized representatives of the major interests involved, collecting primary and secondary materials on them, and interviewing key players from industry, government, and consumer groups. BROADER IMPACTS The research will contribute to general knowledge in science and technology studies, as well as economic sociology, by integrating an awareness of the role of economic experts, pervasive in the market-style deregulation of recent decades, into the sociological understanding of the construction of market institutions.
