The financialization literature lacks a unified definition across four competing usages

Evidence

It is first necessary to distinguish the concept of financialization as I use it here from various ways that the concept is deployed in related literatures. Numerous researchers have used the term in exploring various aspects of the rise of finance, but the literature on financialization is at present a bit of a freefor-all, lacking a cohesive view of what is to be explained. Some writers, for example, use the concept of financialization to refer to the ascendancy of ‘shareholder value’ as a mode of corporate governance (Froud et al., 2000; Lazonick and O’Sullivan, 2000; Williams, 2000). For other scholars, the concept references the growing dominance of the capital markets over systems of bank-based finance (Phillips, 2002). A third view in the literature—harkening back to the beginning of the 20th century (e.g.Hobson, 1971; Hilferding, 1981; Lenin, 1988)—is that financialization reflects the increasing political and economic power of a rentier class (Duménil and Lévy, 2002; Epstein and Jayadev, forthcoming; Greider, 1997). Finally,the term is sometimes used to describe the explosion of financial trading associated with the proliferation of new financial instruments (Phillips,1996). — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 41

Categorization

• XREF: The four-way taxonomy (shareholder value, capital markets dominance, rentier power, financial trading explosion) is the standard map of the field that later reviews still cite. — connects to: Research on household financialization remains fragmented across separate markets — Neil Fligstein & Adam Goldstein, The Emergence of a Finance Culture in…, 13; Financialization has competing explanations from three distinct scholarly disciplines. — Gerald F. Davis & Suntae Kim, Financialization of the Economy, 30; Financialization means accumulation through financial channels rather than production — Greta R. Krippner, The Financialization of the American…, 11 (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing which of the four usages dominates in current work and how the field consolidated after this 2005 intervention.

Related

• Financialization is a pattern of accumulation dominated by financial channels over trade and production (similarity 0.87)
• Financialization lacks rigorous empirical evidence defining its timing and magnitude (similarity 0.87)
• Financialization scholarship spans three approaches with distinct analytic foci. (similarity 0.86)
• Financialization has competing explanations from three distinct scholarly disciplines. (similarity 0.86)
• Financialization has both micro and macro scholarly definitions (similarity 0.86)
• Financialization means accumulation through financial channels rather than production (similarity 0.85)
• Research on household financialization remains fragmented across separate markets (similarity 0.84)
• Scholars asserted financialization’s existence without providing direct evidence (similarity 0.84)
• Financialization marks a decisive shift from production-based to finance-driven accumulation. (similarity 0.84)
• The US economy became increasingly financialized in the post-1970s period. (similarity 0.84)
• Financialization describes finance’s growing penetration into every domain of life (similarity 0.82)
• Financialization ultimately represents markets displacing social institutions as society’s organizing principle. (similarity 0.81)
• Financialization comprises both finance-sector dominance and nonfinance firms’ financial investing. (similarity 0.81)
• Assetization remains an unrecognized analytical entry point in financialization research (similarity 0.81)
• Financial markets reshaped households, corporations, and states over the past 30 years. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Financialization has both micro and macro scholarly definitions #exemplifies (0.85) — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 97
• Assetization remains an unrecognized analytical entry point in financialization research #qualifies (0.80) — Paul Langley, Assets and Assetization in…, 18