ByJune 2004, derivatives contracts totaling $273 trillion (roughly $43,000 for every human being on earth) were outstanding worldwide.' The overall sum of such contracts exaggerates the economic significance of derivatives (for example, it is common for a derivatives contract to be entered into to "cancel out" an earlier contract, but both will appear in the overall figure), and the total must be deflated by a factor of about 100 to reach a realistic estimate of the aggregate market value of derivatives. Even after this correction, derivatives remain a major economic activity. The Bank for International Settlements estimated the total gross credit exposure8 in respect to derivatives of the sixty or so largest participants in the over-the-counter (direct, institution-to-institution) market at the end of June 2004 as $1.48 trillion, roughly equivalent to the annual output of the French economy.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 32