Reported commodity prices like cotton’s ‘world price’ are constructed, not observed.

Evidence

Furthermore, “actual” or “real-world” market prices are complex entities. As Koray Caliskan (2003, 2004) points out in a delightful ethnographic discussion of cotton trading, markets abound with prices and price quotations of many kinds. What gets reported as cotton’s “world price,” for instance, is a complicated construction involving not only averaging but also subjective adjustments. — Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, 103

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Callon’s and Caliskan’s work on markets as sociotechnical agencements and to the literature on prices as constructions.
• CANDY: The idea that the ‘world price’ of cotton is a subjective construction is a fun conversation opener.