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dc.contributor.authorDeringer, William P
dc.date.accessioned2018-06-05T18:12:17Z
dc.date.available2018-06-05T18:12:17Z
dc.date.issued2017-04
dc.identifier.issn1097-3729
dc.identifier.issn0040-165X
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/116112
dc.description.abstractTime is money. But how much? What is money in the future worth to you today? This question of "present value" arises in myriad economic activities, from valuing financial securities to real estate transactions to governmental cost-benefit analysis—even the economics of climate change. In modern capitalist practice, one calculation offers the only "rational" way to answer: compound-interest discounting. In the early modern period, though, economic actors used at least two alternative calculating technologies for thinking about present value, including a vernacular technique called years purchase and discounting by simple interest. All of these calculations had different strengths and affordances, and none was unquestionably better or more "rational" than the others at the time. The history of technology offers distinct resources for understanding such technological competitions, and thus for understanding the emergence of modern economic temporality.en_US
dc.publisherJohns Hopkins University Pressen_US
dc.relation.isversionofhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1353/TECH.2017.0045en_US
dc.rightsArticle is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.en_US
dc.sourceJohns Hopkins University Pressen_US
dc.titlePricing the Future in the Seventeenth Century: Calculating Technologies in Competitionen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US
dc.identifier.citationDeringer, William. “Pricing the Future in the Seventeenth Century: Calculating Technologies in Competition.” Technology and Culture 58, 2 (2017): 506–528 © 2017 Society for the History of Technologyen_US
dc.contributor.departmentMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Program in Science, Technology and Societyen_US
dc.contributor.mitauthorDeringer, William P
dc.relation.journalTechnology and Cultureen_US
dc.eprint.versionFinal published versionen_US
dc.type.urihttp://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticleen_US
eprint.statushttp://purl.org/eprint/status/PeerRevieweden_US
dc.date.updated2018-06-01T18:15:25Z
dspace.orderedauthorsDeringer, Williamen_US
dspace.embargo.termsNen_US
dc.identifier.orcidhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-5010-345X
mit.licensePUBLISHER_POLICYen_US


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