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What is Financialisation? Examining the Role of Economic Methodology as Source of Theoretical and Policy Divergences
Abstract
The term financialisation gained prominence to describe the increasing role of finance, particularly since the 2008 financial crisis. However, a common critique is the lack of consensus on its definition. Some works suggest that these discrepancies are the result of the changing nature of economic reality, while others highlight the distinct research methods applied. In this article, we propose that the understanding of the existence of competing views on financialisation requires methodological awareness, that is, the consideration that each school of thought has distinct perspectives about the nature of economic relations. We argue that the use of different methodological backgrounds by each school result in the plurality of understandings of financialisation. Similarly, methodological aspects not only cause different views among schools, but within the same school. Finally, we argue that, because of these disparate conceptualizations, economists propose different policy strategies to deal with financialisation.
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We review post-Keynesian contributions to demand and growth regime analysis. First, for the theoretical model perspective, we distinguish the Kalecki–Steindl approach and the Sraffian supermultiplier approach as relevant theoretical foundations for demand and growth regime research, with investment-driven and distribution-led growth in the focus of the former and autonomous demand-led growth in the latter. Second, for the empirical-historical perspective, we review different ways of analysing the co-existence of demand and growth regimes in the current period of neoliberal and finance-dominated capitalism. We distinguish, first, a basic national income and financial accounting decomposition approach; second, a Sraffian supermultiplier inspired growth decomposition approach; and third, several lenses looking at growth drivers. We argue that these three levels of analysis are, in principle, not mutually exclusive nor even contradictory, but that they rather complement each other. We conclude that, in particular, the PK analysis of growth drivers provides several systematic links with comparative and international political economy approaches, when it comes to the introduction of the political economy dimension (social blocs, growth coalitions, changes in institutions favouring certain types of re-distribution and economic policies, etc.), while the national income and financial accounting, as well as the Sraffian supermultiplier growth accounting decomposition approaches provide the consistent macroeconomic foundations for such synthetic approaches.
This paper contributes to the growth models debate by expanding the concept of growth drivers to emerging capitalist economies (ECEs). Conceptually, the paper synthesizes growth drivers with a growth model operationalization based on GDP growth contributions and financial sector balances. Drawing on post-Keynesian and structuralist economics, as well as, empirical studies, seven growth drivers for ECEs are reviewed: income distribution, price and non-price competitiveness, commodity prices, private debt, foreign direct investment (FDI) and fiscal policy. Descriptive data for these drivers are presented for 19 regionally grouped ECEs between 2000 and 2019. On average, Asian ECEs exhibit higher growth rates, stable real exchange rates, high and increasing non-price competitiveness and high private debt levels. Latin American countries show comparatively lower growth rates, high but decreasing income inequality, unstable exchange rates and relatively expansionary fiscal policy after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Central and Eastern European countries generally display medium to high growth rates, lower income inequality, high non-price competitiveness, a substantial FDI stock and, after the GFC, real depreciations and contractionary fiscal policy. The assessment of cross-country growth drivers via bivariate coefficients reveals limited robust results, except for non-price competitiveness, which emerges as a significant driver. Additionally, we find indications that private debt and expansionary fiscal policy became more important for growth in ECEs after the GFC. This is in line with the emergence of domestic demand- and private debt-led growth models in ECEs following the GFC in the course of private deleveraging and austerity policies in developed capitalist economies.
Since the late 1970s, heterodox economists have paid increasing attention to the phenomenon of financialization. However, the process, identified with the growing role of finance in the economy, as well as with its impact on the social, cultural and environmental aspects of society, was rather neglected in the mainstream economics. Despite its growing importance in the subsequent years-mainly due to the global financial crisis 2007-2009-financialization still eludes unambiguous interpretation. The aim of the article is to identify and explain the differences in the perception of financialization between heterodox and mainstream economics. We add to the existing literature by making a clear distinction between the ways in which heterodox and mainstream economists understand and interpret financialization. We find that the main source of the different approaches to financialization are oversimplifications in the understanding and modelling of monetary and financial spheres in the mainstream analyses.
Southern European countries are widely considered a distinct type of capitalism, but they have experienced a varied growth performance, both over time and across countries. This paper investigates the growth drivers in southern Europe since the mid-1990s. We consider a broad set of potential growth drivers derived from the literature on Mediterranean capitalism and Comparative Political Economy more broadly. On the demand side, these include the role of house prices (as the main financial variable; highlighted in parts of the growth models approach); the ‘financial curse’ hypothesis (which posits that financial inflows caused house price booms and crowded out manufacturing activities); and Keynesian arguments on the impact of fiscal policy. On the supply side, these encompass the cost competitiveness argument (consistent with mainstream economics and the Varieties of Capitalism approach), research-led technological change; and neo-structuralist arguments regarding the productive capacity. We find strong evidence for the growth contributions of house prices and fiscal policy. While these findings are generally supportive of extant analysis of these economies as finance-led rather than export-led, they call for a more serious integration of house prices in growth model analysis and for a more systematic analysis of the growth impact of fiscal policy.
In recent years, diverging demand and growth regimes received greater scholarly attention. Particularly, the intersection between variants of Comparative Political Economy and the post-Keynesian macroeconomic analysis provides a promising avenue for understanding the main dynamics of various growth regimes. Yet, the majority of these studies focused on the global North. We expand this analysis to the global South by examining eight large emerging capitalist economies (ECEs), Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, and Turkey, during the periods 2000–2008 and 2009–2019. In so doing, we not only uncover the main demand and growth regimes of ECEs for the two periods but also link them to the main trends in the demand and growth regimes of developed capitalist economies (DCEs) for both periods. One main finding of our research is that ECEs did not follow the same path as DCEs after the Great Recession. While there was a clear shift in the demand and growth regimes of DCEs toward export orientation, the main pattern in the ECEs remained as the continuation of a trend that already emerged before the 2007–09 crisis, i.e., domestic demand-led regimes associated with considerable financial deficits of domestic private and/or public sectors. Finally, we provide some observations on the puzzle of resilient domestic demand-led regimes in ECEs.
In this paper, we examine the connection between full investment and public banking. As we argue, Keynes’s notion of full investment has been left largely unexplored, both by the author himself and economics ever since. We argue that Keynes correctly diagnosed the principles of ‘sound finance’ as limiting human progress, but did not map out a viable alternate solution of ‘full investment.’ We examine E.F. Schumacher’s critiques of Keynes’s position that until the problem of production is solved, only following what Keynes calls ‘the money motive’ could lead humanity out of the tunnel of economic need and toward economic bliss. Now a half century since Schumacher’s critiques, the production problem can be seen in a new light, and the debate of the money motive can be reevaluated with greater context. We build upon the debate and the lessons of recent history, and within the context of other thinkers such as Veblen and Polanyi, to argue that the money motive does not need to be abandoned, but rather placed within a reformed institutional and monetary framework. We follow Schumacher’s critique to argue that Keynes’s invitation to consider the idea of full investment can only be properly addressed by shifting the overall objective of economic activity from production to human advancement. We conclude the paper by offering several considerations on why public banks are ideal institutions to shepherd a transformation of mentality into the creation of new markets and activities dedicated to human advancement.
This paper explores the economics and political economy of financialization using Matt Taibbi's vampire squid metaphor to characterize it. The paper makes five innovations. First, it focuses on the mechanics of the ‘vampire squid’ process whereby financialization rotates through the economy, loading sector balance sheets with debt. Second, it identifies the critical role of government budget deficits for the financialization process. Third, it identifies the critical role of central banks, which are the lynchpin of the system and now serve as de facto guarantors of the value and liquidity of private sector liabilities. Fourth, the paper argues financialization imposes a form of policy lock-in. Fifth, it argues financialization transforms popular attitudes and understandings, thereby generating political support despite poor economic outcomes. In effect, there is a politics of financialization that goes hand-in-hand with the economics. The paper concludes with some observations on why mainstream macroeconomics has no equivalent construct to financialization and discusses the disquieting unexplored terrain that the economy is now in.
We contribute to the recent debates on demand and growth regimes in modern finance-dominated capitalism linking them to the post-Keynesian research on macroeconomic policy regimes. We examine the demand and growth regimes, as well as the macroeconomic policy regimes for the big four Eurozone countries, France, Germany, Italy and Spain, for the periods 2001–2009 and 2010–2019. First, our approach supports the usefulness of the identification of demand and growth regimes according to growth contributions of the main demand components and financial balances of the macroeconomic sectors. This allows for an understanding of the demand sources of growth, or stagnation, if there is a lack of demand, of how these sources are financed and of potential financial instabilities and fragilities. Second, when it comes to the macroeconomic policy drivers of demand and growth regimes, as well as their respective changes, we show that the exclusive focus on fiscal policies, as in the previous literature, is too limited and that it is the macroeconomic policy regime which matters here, i.e. the combination of monetary, fiscal and wage policies, as well as the open economy conditions.
The paper contributes to the recent growth models debate through a cross-country analysis of growth drivers before and after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). It argues that the widely used dichotomy of export-led versus (debt-financed) consumption-led growth has lost its usefulness since the GFC. Specifically, identifying growth models through growth contributions can give misleading results when the drivers of economic growth change. The paper contends that Comparative Political Economy (CPE) has neglected the unstable nature of financial growth drivers, effectively ignores fiscal policy, and overemphasizes price competitiveness as a growth driver. It shows empirically that, first, debt-financed growth is cyclical and financial booms come with busts and debt overhang; second, post-GFC growth dynamics are strongly shaped by the fiscal policy reaction; third, price competitiveness through wage deflation has played a negligible role in driving growth. We conclude that CPE needs to broaden its analysis of growth drivers in order to understand how the GFC transformed growth models.
The global financial crisis and ensuing weak growth have increased interest in macroeconomic issues within comparative political economy (CPE). CPE, particularly the dominant Varieties of Capitalism approach, has based its analyses on mainstream economics, which limits analysis of the relation between distribution and growth and neglects the role finance plays in modern economies. It overstates the stability of the capitalist growth process and understates the potential effectiveness of government interventions. Baccaro and Pontusson have suggested a post-Keynesian (PK) theory of distribution and growth as an alternative. This article generalizes their point. PK theory highlights the instability of the growth process and lends itself to an analysis of income distribution and power relations. The article identifies the analysis of financialization and financial cycles, the understanding of neoliberal growth models, and the political economy of central banks as areas where PK economics provides specific insights for CPE. It also highlights that these arguments have important implications for government policy in an era of secular stagnation with ongoing social, distributional, and economic crises.
This paper makes an empirical evaluation of the relationship between financialisation and the Portuguese private consumption by performing a time series econometric analysis from the first quarter of 1996 to the third quarter of 2019. Framed within the post-Keynesian literature, financialisation has two contradictory effects on private consumption. The first one corresponds to the fall in the households' labour income, which favours a deceleration of private consumption. The second one corresponds to the increase of households' debt and the increase of households' financial and housing wealth, which favours an acceleration of private consumption. The global net effect of financialisation tends to be positive because the beneficial wealth effect suppresses the harmful income effect. We estimated a private consumption equation that includes four control variables (unemployment rate, inflation rate, short-term interest rate and long-term interest rate) and three variables linked to financialisation (labour income, net financial wealth and housing wealth). Our results confirm that labour income, net financial wealth and housing wealth are positive determinants of Portuguese private consumption. Our results also show that financialisation has represented an important driver of Portuguese private consumption, particularly due to the beneficial effects of net financial wealth.
The paper discusses the nature of the present era of financialisation, outlining the changes in the financial sector and its relations with the real sector which are particularly relevant for the climate emergency. The relationship between growth of the financial sector ('financial development') and economic growth is reviewed, and the relevant of recent empirical findings for the role of the financial sector in addressing the climate emergency drawn out. It is argued that the policy approach to the climate emergency and environmental degradation should be embedded within an industrial strategy. Further, it is argued that the structures of the financial sector need to be changed to encourage financial institutions which are more favourably disposed towards to the allocation of funds to 'green investment'. It is also argued that the central bank should act in ways which are supportive of environmental policies but that their role is a rather limited one. Journal of Economic Literature classification codes: Q50, L50, G20, E58
This paper provides a critique of the DSGE models that have come to dominate macroeconomics during the past quarter-century. It argues that at the heart of the failure were the wrong microfoundations, which failed to incorporate key aspects of economic behaviour, e.g. incorporating insights from information economics and behavioural economics. Inadequate modelling of the financial sector meant they were ill-suited for predicting or responding to a financial crisis; and a reliance on representative agent models meant they were ill-suited for analysing either the role of distribution in fluctuations and crises or the consequences of fluctuations on inequality. The paper proposes alternative benchmark models that may be more useful both in understanding deep downturns and responding to them.
Forecasts by economists of the economic damage from climate change have been notably sanguine, compared to warnings by scientists about damage to the biosphere. This is because economists made their own predictions of damages, using three spurious methods: assuming that about 90% of GDP will be unaffected by climate change, because it happens indoors; using the relationship between temperature and GDP today as a proxy for the impact of global warming over time; and using surveys that diluted extreme warnings from scientists with optimistic expectations from economists. Nordhaus has misrepresented the scientific literature to justify the using a smooth function to describe the damage to GDP from climate change. Correcting for these errors makes it feasible that the economic damages from climate change are at least an order of magnitude worse than forecast by economists, and may be so great as to threaten the survival of human civilization.
The paper opens with a consideration of the historical developments on the nature and features of money and endogenous money, and the post-Keynesian revival of ideas of endogenous money. Particular attention is drawn to the work of Basil Moore in relation to endogenous money, including the location of that analysis with commercial banks (some of whose liabilities are transferable and widely accepted as a means of payment) and the post-Keynesian-inspired revival of endogenous money. There is a brief outline of the aspects of financialization since the late 1970s which have relevance for the analysis of banks and money. Some thoughts are offered on the impact which those changes of the financial system have for the analysis of banks and of money.
Financialization has become the go-to term for scholars grappling with the growth of finance. This Handbook offers the first comprehensive survey of the scholarship on financialization, connecting finance with changes in politics, technology, culture, society and the economy.
It takes stock of the diverse avenues of research that comprise financialization studies and the contributions they have made to understanding the changes in contemporary societies driven by the rise of finance. The chapters chart the field’s evolution from research describing and critiquing the manifestations of financialization towards scholarship that pinpoints the driving forces, mechanisms and boundaries of financialization.
Written for researchers and students not only in economics but from across the social sciences and the humanities, this book offers a decidedly global and pluri-disciplinary view on financialization for those who are looking to understand the changing face of finance and its consequences.
The financialisation literature has grown over the past decades. Despite a generally accepted definition, financialisation has been used to describe different phenomena. We distinguish between financialisation of non-financial companies, households and the financial sector and use activity and vulnerability measures. We identify seven financialisation hypotheses in the literature and empirically investigate them in a cross-country analysis for 17 OECD countries and two time periods, 1997–2007 as well as 2008–17. We find different financialisation measures are only weakly correlated, suggesting the existence of distinct financialisation processes. There is strong evidence that financialisation is linked to asset price inflation and correlated with a debt-driven demand regime. Financial deregulation encourages financialisation. There is limited evidence that market-based financial systems are more financialised. Foreign financial inflows do not seem a main driver. We do not find indication that an investment slowdown precedes financialisation. Our findings suggest financialisation should be understood as a variegated process, playing out differently across economic sectors and countries.
This chapter associates Keynes’ insights with the process of financialisation. First, we underline the relevance of his analyses on studying the current period of financialisation, i.e., the neoliberal era. Second, we use his analytical framework to demonstrate that the period between 1900 and 1933 corresponded to a phase of early financialisation, since similar conditions prevailed then and now. We give particular emphasis on how financial interests and motives shaped policy decisions and altered firms’ behaviour.
In the rapid growth of the literature on financialisation, the term risks becoming meaningless ('take x, add finance'). This contribution first reviews this literature, highlighting characteristic empirical features at the macroeconomic level and their variegation across different institutional contexts, then turning to meso-and micro-level multidisciplinary studies of how processes of financialisation have manifest in the transformed behaviour of firms, states and households, as well as in the changing mode of provision of public services and the appropriation of the commons. Marxist attempts to theorize the essences of financialisation are examined and found wanting. Two proposals are made in the spirit of advancing this project. First, financialisation as cyclical process must be disentangled from financialised capitalism as secular stage. Second, it is argued that the emergence of financialised capitalism as a new stage within mature capitalism is linked with the central role played by finance in the internationalisation of the circuit of production. Year: 2018 No: GPERC62 GREENWICH POLITICAL ECONOMY RESEARCH CENTRE (GPERC) 2 Acknowledgments: I am grateful to Bruno Bonizzi, Jo Michell, Nina Kaltenbrunner, Duncan Lindo, Ezgi Unsal and Tomás Rotta for their comments. The usual disclaimers apply.
This chapter outlines how the pace and structure of financialisation have differed over time and across countries, and also how income distribution (inequality of personal income, distribution between wages and profits) has proceeded with different time profiles and structures. This chapter outlines the nature and features of financialisation in the present era, and provides a summary of the main trends in income distribution and inequality over the past three decades. The links between the financial sector and inequality of income and earnings are explored, and specifically the extent of inequality within the financial sector and the degree to which inequality in the financial sector contributes to overall inequality. The evidence on the processes of financialisation and the distribution of income is reviewed. The ways in which financial deepening can impact on inequality and poverty are explored. The links between inequality and financial crisis and household debt are reviewed.
Since Hyman Minsky’s death in 1996, much has been written about financialization. This article — by means of the synthesis, interpretation, and assessment of an extensive literature — explores the issues that Minsky examined in the last decade of his life and considers their relationship to the financialization literature. At the heart of those issues is what Minsky called money manager capitalism, which he viewed through the lens of a theory of capitalist development inherited from Joseph Schumpeter. Advancing our understanding of the history of financial economics, the article shows how Minsky contributed to — indeed, anticipated much of — the study of financialization. The article also identifies two sources of Minsky’s insightfulness: his treatment of economics as a grand adventure, and his willingness to step beyond the world of theory and interact with the world of practice. Today, scholars with a Minsky perspective face formidable challenges, but, the author concludes, within Minsky’s writings is also a glimmer of hope: Economic systems are not natural systems; we can reshape them to achieve a more humane world.
This article presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between financialisation and real investment for non-financial corporations using panel data composed of 27 European Union countries over 19 years (1995 to 2013). On the one hand, financialisation leads to a rise in financial investments, diverting funds from real investments (‘crowding out’ effect); on the other, pressures from shareholders to intensify financial payments restrict the funds available for new real investments. We estimate an aggregate investment equation with the traditional variables (lagged investment, profitability, debt, cost of capital, corporate savings and output growth) and two further measures of financialisation (financial receipts and financial payments). The findings demonstrate that financialisation has damaged real investment in European Union countries, mainly through the channel of financial payments, either by interest or dividend payments. It is also found that the prejudicial effects of financialisation on investment were more severe in the pre-2007 crisis period. It is concluded that financialisation contributed to a slowdown of real investment by 1 to 8 per cent in the full and pre-crisis period, respectively. During the pre-crisis period, financialisation was the main driver of the slowdown of investment in the European Union.
This paper investigates Pure Neoclassical economics from a logical standpoint. After discussing validity criteria, it focuses on theoretical individualism, a core foundation of Neoclassical theorizing in all its variants. Careful analysis of this doctrine reveals that, while mathematically valid, it generates many propositional contradictions in all economic and social science theories grounded upon it.
This collection is the first comprehensive selection of readings focusing on corporate bankruptcy. Its main purpose is to explore the nature and efficiency of corporate reorganisation using interdisciplinary approaches drawn from law, economics, business, and finance. Substantive areas covered include the role of credit, creditors' implicit bargains, non-bargaining features of bankruptcy, workouts of agreements, alternatives to bankruptcy, and proceedings in countries other than the United States, including the United Kingdom, Europe, and Japan.
This article analyses the effects of financialisation on non-financial companies’ (NFCs) investment and explores the interactions between financialisation and the structural and institutional features of developing and emerging economies (DEEs). We estimate the effects of financialisation on physical investment for a sample of DEEs using panel data based on the balance sheets of publicly listed NFCs. Our main contribution is to assess the interactions between the financialisation of the NFCs and country-level financial development, financial reform, capital account openness and global value chain participation. We find that the effects of the financialisation of the NFCs in DEEs are highly context specific. Stock market development, financial reforms for liberalisation, capital account openness and participation in the global value chains are associated with more pronounced negative effects of financialisation on investment. Our analysis provides novel empirical evidence regarding the sources of variation in the financialisation of corporations in DEEs.
Economic theory has two inter-related, desiderata — valid argumentation, and scientific explanations of relevant realities. This paper explores whether these objectives can be achieved with a widely-deployed form of Neoclassical economics. Applying arguments drawn from logic to this type of theorizing produces far-reaching conclusions.
The variegated experiences of financialisation in Emerging Capitalist Economies (ECEs) require a theory of global structural transformation in which these appearances can be located. Such a transformation can be found in the substantive advancement of the internationalisation of the circuits of capital, marking the passage into a new stage of financialised capitalism. In this new stage, finance has taken the concrete form of a US dollar market-based system, while production is carried out through global production networks. The confluence of these new realities has impacted both the size and the nature of the transfer of value from subordinate regions. An increasing share of this transferred value is captured by finance, both as reward for services rendered and as opportunities for expropriation have proliferated. In financialised capitalism, ECEs are cast in a subordinate position in relation to the extraction, realisation, and ‘storage’ of value, and the agency of their public and private agents is severely constrained.
It is frequently asserted that financialisation has contributed to the decline in the wage share. This paper provides a theoretical clarification and a systematic empirical investigation. We identify four channels through which financialisation can affect the wage share: (i) enhanced exit options of firms; (ii) rising price mark-ups due to financial overhead costs for businesses; (iii) increased competition on capital markets and (iv) the role of household debt in increasing workers’ financial vulnerability and undermining their class consciousness. The paper compiles a comprehensive set of empirical measures of financialisation and uses it to test these hypotheses with a panel regression of 14 advanced countries over the 1992–2014 period. We find strong evidence for negative effects of financial liberalisation and financial payments of non-financial corporations on the wage share, which are in the same order of magnitude as the effects of globalisation.
This paper studies whether there is a connection between finance and growth at the firm level. It employs a new dataset of 150,165 equity and bond issuances around the world, matched with income and balance sheet data for 62,653 listed firms in 65 countries over 1990-2016. Three main patterns emerge from the analyses. First, firms that choose to issue in capital markets use the funds raised to grow by enhancing their productive capabilities, increasing their tangible and intangible capital and the number of employees. Growth accelerates as firms raise funds. Second, the faster growth is more pronounced among firms that are more likely to face tighter financing constraints, namely, small, young, and high-R&D firms. Third, capital market issuances are associated with faster growth among firms located in countries with more developed capital markets relative to banks. Capital markets are also comparatively effective at allowing financially constrained firms to raise capital.
The adoption as policy models by central banks of representative agent New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models has been widely criticised, including for their simplistic micro-foundations. At the Bank of England, the previous generation of policy models is seen in its 1999 medium-term macro model (MTMM). Instead of improving that model to correct its considerable flaws, many shared by other non-DSGE policy models such as the Federal Reserve’s FRB/US, it was replaced in 2004 by the DSGE-based BEQM. Though this clearly failed during and after the global financial crisis, it was replaced in 2011 by the DSGE COMPASS, complemented by a ‘suite of models’. We provide a general critique of DSGE models for explaining, forecasting and policy analyses at central banks, and suggest new directions for improving current empirical macroeconomic models based on empirical modelling broadly consistent with better theory, rather than seeking to impose simplistic and unrealistic theory.
This paper argues that the re-emergence of stagnation tendencies in modern capitalism can be related to financialisation and its macroeconomic failures leading to the recent crises, and in particular to the macroeconomic responses towards the crisis and the respective regime shifts in mature capitalist economies. The focus of the paper is on the latter, and it examines the regime changes for six mature capitalist economies, the two liberal Anglo-Saxon economies of the USA and the UK, a representative country from the Nordic welfare states, Sweden, the three important Eurozone countries France, Germany and Spain, as well as the core Eurozone (EA-12) as a whole. The concept of macroeconomic regimes under the conditions of financialisation is recapitulated, applied to the period before the crisis, and finally the regime changes during and after the crisis are examined. It is shown that a dominant tendency towards export-led mercantilism, in particular in the Eurozone and its main member countries, imposes an aggregation problem on the global economy and thus contributes to stagnation and rising global macroeconomic risks. Finally, short- and long-run alternative policies to deal with these problems are suggested.
Understanding the nature of state financialisation is crucial to ensure de-financialisation efforts are successful. Therefore, this article provides a structured overview of the emerging literature on financialisation and the state. We define financialisation of the state broadly as the changed relationship between the state, understood as sovereign with duties and accountable towards its citizens, and financial markets and practices, in ways that can diminish those duties and reduce accountability. We then argue that there are four ways in which financialisation works in and through public institutions and policies: adoption of financial logics, advancing financial innovation, embracing financial accumulation strategies and directly financialising the lives of their citizens. Organising our review around the two main policy fields of fiscal and monetary policy, four definitions of financialisation in the context of public policy and institutions emerge. When dealing with public expenditure on social provisions, financialisation most often refers to the transformation of public services into the basis for actively traded financial assets. In the context of public revenue, financialisation describes the process of creating and deepening secondary markets for public debt, with the state turning into a financial market player. Finally, in the realm of monetary policy, financial deregulation is perceived to have paved the way for financialisation, while inflation targeting and the encouragement, or outright pursuit, of market-based short-term liquidity management among financial institutions constitute financialised policies.
The apparently never-ending phase of economic slowdown that advanced economies have been experiencing in recent decades has recently contributed to the resurrection of the hoary old argument of ‘secular stagnation’. In this paper, situated intellectually within the strand of research documenting the negative impact on growth of inequality and financialization, we elaborate on the idea that such a prolonged period of stagnation is associated with a new paradigm of socio-economic policy, ‘finance-dominated capitalism’.
In this way, we distance ourselves from the mainstream ‘secular stagnation’ narrative, adopting instead a post-Keynesian perspective that allows us to discuss the links between financialization and inequality, on one hand, and economic performance, on the other. Then, we submit our arguments to empirical scrutiny by undertaking an econometric analysis of 21 OECD countries between 1990 and 2016. The evidence indicates that excessive levels of financialization, along with high inequality and weak labor market institutions, have a negative impact on real growth. Based on our findings, we propose possible demand-side policies, to be implemented through expansionary fiscal measures, which could help sustain GDP growth and employment in the current context of stagnation, mitigating income inequality and sustaining an inclusive recovery at the same time.
Connecting comparative political economy (CPE) approaches, as the Varieties of Capitalism (VoC) theory, with post-Keynesian (PK) research on different demand and growth regimes in modern capitalism has recently given rise to some interesting claims regarding differentiation and shifts of demand and growth regimes. However, we find some difficulties in the way PK approaches have been interpreted and integrated in modern CPE approaches. Therefore, we first provide a theoretically consistent and empirically applicable classification of demand and growth regimes under the conditions of finance-dominated capitalism, as it recently has been proposed by PK authors. Second, instead of using the traditional VoC dual classification, we focus on a more differentiated welfare model classification, which can be seen as different socio-institutional responses towards the challenges of globalisation and financialisation. For the period before the 2007-9 crisis, we link the PK demand and growth regimes with five socio-economic models identified by Hay and Wincott (2012 Hay, C., & Wincott, D. (2012). The political economy of European welfare capitalism. Palgrave Macmillan.[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), and thus provide an alternative approach. Third, going beyond the current debate, we examine the regime shifts after the 2007-9 global crisis with respect to the demand and growth regimes, and we also examine the changes within the welfare models. Whereas we find a clear pattern for the shift of demand and growth regimes, the changes in the welfare models are not as clear-cut.
Although research shows that competitive banks spur corporate growth, less is known about the impact of bank competition on corporate risk. Using a sample of more than 70,000 firm-year observations covering the period from 1975 through 1994, we find that deregulation that intensified competition among banks materially reduced corporate risk, especially among firms that rely heavily on bank finance. We find that competition-enhancing bank deregulation reduced corporate volatility by easing credit constraints when firms experience adverse shocks and reducing the procyclicality of borrowing.
Since the early 1980s, financialization has become an increasingly important trend in developed capitalist countries, with different timing, speed, and intensities in different countries. Rising inequality has been a major feature of this trend. Shares of wages in national income have declined and personal income inequality has increased. Against this background unsustainable demand and growth regimes have developed that dominated the major economies before the crisis: the ‘debt-led private demand boom’ and the ‘export-led mercantilist’ regime. The article applies this post-Keynesian approach to the macroeconomics of finance-dominated capitalism of three Baltic Sea countries, Denmark, Estonia, and Latvia, both for the pre-crisis and the post-crisis period. First, the macroeconomics of finance-dominated capitalism are briefly reiterated. Second, the financialization-distribution nexus is examined for the three countries. Third, macroeconomic demand and growth regimes are analyzed, both before and after the crisis.
The purpose of this article is to explain the determinants behind the decline of labour share in the last three to four decades in OECD countries. In our view, this decline was determined by financialisation and was deepened by the structural changes that occurred almost simultaneously in those economies. Financialisation, or finance-dominated capitalism, from the 1980s onwards, was a key element in the strategic offensive of the advanced countries' dominant classes to appropriate higher shares of national income and to restore their control over the political process, a control that had been threatened by a generalised advancement of the labour movement in the 1970s. The development of a finance-dominated capitalism was helped by the process of global-isation, which affected not only OECD countries but also many others. A new, though unstable, macroeconomic model emerged, which we will call financial capitalism. In financial capitalism, trade unions lost power vis-à-vis capital, labour flexibility increased enormously, and a structural change from manufacturing to services was accelerated in rich countries. This resulted in negative consequences for labour share and income inequality. After having provided a theoretical discussion of the determinants of the compression of the wage share, making reference to the relevant literature, we submit our hypotheses to empirical scrutiny, performing a panel data analysis on 28 OECD Countries. The results of the estimations provide support to the theoretical argument.
This paper estimates the effects of financialization on physical investment in the UK using panel data based on balance sheets of publicly listed non-financial companies supplied by Worldscope for the period 1985–2013. We find robust evidence of an adverse effect of not only financial payments (interests and dividends) but also financial incomes on the rate of accumulation. The negative impacts of financial incomes from interests and dividends are particularly strong for the pre-crisis period. Our findings support the ‘financialization thesis’ that the increasing orientation of the non-financial sector towards financial activities is ultimately leading to lower physical investment, hence to stagnant or fragile growth, as well as long-term concerns for productivity.
The purpose of this article is twofold. First, we examine if, and to what extent, a general Kaleckian analysis of the potential effects of financialisation on income shares in advanced capitalist economies is of relevance for the three Eurozone countries under investigation—France, Germany and Spain—in the period before the recent financial and economic crisis. Second, we study changes in the financialisation–distribution nexus that have occurred in the course of and after the financial and economic crisis. We find that the countries examined here have shown broad similarities regarding redistribution before the crisis, although there are some differences in the underlying determinants. These differences have continued during the period after the crisis and have led to different results in the development of distribution since then.
In this article we analyze the effects of financialization on income distribution, before and after the Great Financial Crisis and the Great Recession, for the two liberal Anglo-Saxon economies, the United States and the United Kingdom, and for a typical Nordic welfare state economy, Sweden. We apply a Kaleckian perspective in which the focus will be on functional income distribution and thus on the relationship between financialization and the wage share or the gross profit share. According to this approach, financialization may affect aggregate wage or gross profit shares of the economy as a whole through three channels: first, the sectoral composition of the economy; second, the financial overhead costs and profit claims of the rentiers; and third, the bargaining power of workers and trade unions. We examine empirical indicators for each of these channels, both before and after the crisis. We find that the types of countries investigated here have shown broad similarities regarding redistribution before the crisis, however, with major differences in the underlying determinants. These differences have carried through to the period after the crisis and have led to different results regarding the development of distribution since then.
The turbulent 1980s and 1990s have seen important developments in the area of money and banking; these are discussed in this volume, focusing on financial innovations, the EMS and international monetary systems, monetary policy is an interdependent world, liquidity constraints and monetary policy, and monetary problems of developing countries.
This contribution discusses the international aspect of financialization in developing and emerging economies (DEEs). It argues that international financialization is more than just an increase in cross-border capital flows but entails distinct qualitative changes in the way economic agents are integrated into international financial markets. Moreover, in line with the emerging literature on subordinated financialization, the article shows how these changes have been shaped by, and have themselves exacerbated, the subordinated position of DEEs in the international economic and financial system and hence have contributed to uneven international development. Based on an empirical discussion of recent changes in DEEs’ international financial integration, the article concludes with some concrete policy proposals on how to confront these international aspects of financialization.
This paper integrates elements from the theory of agency, the theory of property rights and the theory of finance to develop a theory of the ownership structure of the firm. We define the concept of agency costs, show its relationship to the 'separation and control' issue, investigate the nature of the agency costs generated by the existence of debt and outside equity, demonstrate who bears the costs and why, and investigate the Pareto optimality of their existence. We also provide a new definition of the firm, and show how our analysis of the factors influencing the creation and issuance of debt and equity claims is a special case of the supply side of the completeness of markets problem.