Financialisation involves the growth of the financial sector in the economic, the social and the political spheres. The processes of financialisation have major consequences for economic performance, social well-being and the environment. This policy brief focuses on the forms which the processes of financialisation have taken over the past three and a half decades in a wide range of European economies (and USA and South Africa). It discusses the ways in which the financial sector has grown in importance and its institutions evolved. It is argued that the processes of financialisation have been universal in the countries examined (and more generally) but the pace and forms of financialisation have differed – this leads us to coin the term ‘variegated financialisation’.
Download policy brief: “The processes of financialisation“
