Pierre-Christian Fink is a scholar of economic sociology and political economy, emphasizing historical methods and theoretical development. His work explores how financial elites create markets that are hidden from the public but powerfully influence citizens’ economic opportunities across the globe. 

In a recent article published in the American Sociological Review, Fink provided a new interpretation of the financial crisis of 1974 as a crucial moment in the emergence of the current economic system. An article scheduled for publication in Capitalism: A Journal of History and Economics analyzes the Federal Reserve’s 2023 report on the failure of Silicon Valley Bank.  

Fink’s research has been funded by the Lyndon B. Johnson and Gerald Ford Presidential Foundations and a Henry Kaufman Financial History Research Fellowship.

Fink joins the University of Virginia from Harvard University, where he was a postdoctoral fellow at the Law School. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Columbia University. He has contributed to the building of a scholarly community on sociology and political economy by co-organizing two virtual events: a panel on recent bank failures and a book salon with new publications on finance.