One way to pursue a better understanding of the relationship between financial models and "reality" is by means of empirical research on arbitrage as market practice, and the case of LTCM is of interest from that viewpoint. A social process imitation was at the heart of LTCM's crisis. The hedge fund and its predecessor group of bond-market arbitrageurs, led by LTCM's founder John Meriwether at the investment bank Salomon Brothers, were extremely successful. That success led others to begin similar trading, to devote more capital to it, or (in the case of mortgage-backed securities) even to adjust the models they were using in order to bring them into harmony with the features that they inferred the model being used by Meriwether's group must possess.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 155