Is a Stock Exchange a Computer Solution?Explicitness, Algorithms and the Arizona Stock Exchange

摘要

The paper examines, through a case study on the Arizona Stock Exchange, how computerization challenged the definition of the stock exchange in the context of North-American financial markets in the 1990s. It analyses exchange automation in terms of trials of explicitness: the computational formulation of what an exchange is calls for a detailed explication of the (variable, often conflicting and unanticipated) processes and properties of price formation. The paper focuses in particular on the argument of the concentration of liquidity in one single point, which was central to the development of the Arizona Stock Exchange (an electronic call auction). It then asks what kind of revolution is the 'explicitness revolution'in the design of allocation mechanisms.