Overall, there is little doubt that finance theory's incorporation into market infrastructure was consequential: in the terminology sketched in chapter 1, it constituted "effective performativity." The stock market itself was affected first in the United States and then overseas by the growth of index funds, which were, as chapter 3 noted, inspired in part by ideas of market efficiency' Again, though, it has been in the derivatives markets that the effects of finance theory have been the most profound. As emphasized above, those markets simply could not function on anything like the scale that they currently do without a technical and communicative infrastructure incorporating models that can be traced back to option theory.

Donald MacKenzie, An Engine, Not a Camera, loc. 1138