73

The new economic sociology seeks to apply the methods, concepts and models of sociology to the study of economic phenomena. Some reference papers of this paradigm are devoted to the explanation of the economic phenomenon “par excellence”, the market price. But does sociology have at its disposal a specific theory of price, different from those elaborated by economic science? In order to answer this question, this paper conducts a detailed inquiry into three important studies belonging to the new economic sociology and dealing with the explanation of prices. The analysis shows that these studies all make use implicitly of economic models or laws without which they would be totally unable to reach an explanation of the levels or movements of prices. Economic sociology, even though it adds to the thinking on the influence of social factors on prices, does not seem to possess a set of theories that could replace the economic theories in order to account for market prices.