Books

Pop Finance: Investment Clubs & the New Investor Populism

2008, Princeton University Press

“A brilliant idea here: to study investment clubs up close, to observe the transmission of ideas and values at an investor’s social nexus. The book provides deep insights into the mind of the market.”
—Robert J. Shiller, Nobel laureate in Economics, author of Irrational Exuberance and Animal Spirits

“Superb, remarkably timely, and an extraordinary contribution to several fields. A wonderful study of how groups do and don’t work, and a unique examination of how people really think about investments. Prepare to be surprised! Harrington’s book is a classic. It will have a major academic impact; it will also get, and deserve to get, a large general readership.”
—Cass R. Sunstein, Harvard Law School, co-author of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness

“A fascinating study of group decision making in investment clubs. Harrington’s insights on the role of gender make important contributions not only to behavioral finance but also to the value of diversity in organizations of all types.”
—Burton G. Malkiel, Princeton University, author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street

“Pop Finance has a great deal to offer many audiences, not just those interested in economic sociology, organizations, markets, and behavioral finance but also scholars who study groups, demography and diversity, social capital, decision making, gender, and identity. And researchers can gain some invaluable methodological insights into fieldwork and multimethod studies from Harrington’s careful and creative scholarship. Like the stock market itself, Pop Finance has its ups and downs, but the returns from reading it are well worth the investment.”
—James Baron, Administrative Science Quarterly

“Brooke Harrington has penned a lively and timely book looking at the role played by investment clubs in the emergent investor populism. . . . The book contains a wealth of insights and would be a valuable addition to courses in economic and organizational sociology.”
—Jeffrey J. Sallaz, Contemporary Sociology

“Pop Finance is a useful study of the social psychology of amateur participation in the stock market, and it contains a good deal of interesting material showing how social identities are the substrate that investment decisions and market action grow out of.”
—Kieran Healy, American Journal of Sociology

During the 1990s, the United States underwent a dramatic transformation: investing in stocks, once the province of a privileged elite, became a mass activity involving more than half of Americans. Pop Finance follows the trajectory of this new market populism via the rise of investment clubs, through which millions of people across the socioeconomic spectrum became investors for the first time.

As sociologist Brooke Harrington shows, these new investors pour billions of dollars annually into the U.S. stock market and hold significant positions in some of the nation’s largest firms. Drawing upon Harrington’s long-term observation of investment clubs, along with in-depth interviews and extensive survey data, Pop Finance is the first book to examine the origins and impact of this mass engagement in investing.