Greta R. Krippner — The Financialization of the American Economy

33 published claims from this book.

• An accumulation-centred view measures economic change by profit location.
• Arrighi and Phillips asserted financialization without empirical support
• Company-level industry classification can misallocate financial subsidiaries to non-financial sectors.
• Corporate spin-offs inflate portfolio income measures independently of financial orientation
• Depreciation allowances bias both profit and cash-flow measures of financialization in opposite directions.
• Finance has come to dominate American economic life.
• Financial profits relative to non-financial profits rose three to fivefold by the late 1990s.
• Financialization can be measured by comparing non-financial firms’ portfolio income to their cash flow.
• Financialization cannot be reduced to stock market developments.
• Financialization is a pattern of accumulation dominated by financial channels over trade and production
• Financialization lacks rigorous empirical evidence defining its timing and magnitude
• Financialization may erode the postwar capital-labor social pact
• Financialization means accumulation through financial channels rather than production
• Financialization must be measured by profit generation, not employment or output
• Financialization theory rejects bank dominance in favor of integrated finance-industrial capital
• Frameworks for economic change should be judged by theoretical usefulness, not absolute truth.
• Globalization’s effect on welfare spending is non-linear, not monotonic
• Globalization’s eroding effect on state power is empirically overstated
• Managerial displacement of owners was once seen as progressive insulation from profit pressures
• Measuring finance’s rise by profits misleads if grouped under services.
• Measuring profits rather than employment reveals financialization as the dominant economic trend
• Measuring surplus generation rather than distribution requires reporting cash flow before taxes and dividends.
• Multi-layered subsidiary ownership now prevails over the multidivisional corporate form in the US
• Non-financial firms increasingly resemble financial corporations through revenue reliance
• Nonfinancial firms’ portfolio income relative to cash flow surged by the late 1980s
• Opposing measurement biases strengthen confidence in the financialization trend
• Outsourcing trade receivables shifts interest income out of nonfinancial firms into the financial sector
• Rentier income share rose broadly across OECD countries in recent decades.
• Scholars asserted financialization’s existence without providing direct evidence
• Scholars should verify economic shifts empirically before explaining them
• Stock market gains spur consumer spending independent of jobs and wages
• The financialization literature lacks a unified definition across four competing usages
• The US economy became increasingly financialized in the post-1970s period.