Financialization is a term which, like 'globalization', has a debatable meaning and no clear boundaries. Broadly, it refers to the way in which financial processes and financial calculation are changing relations between and within capital markets, firms, households and regulators.
The importance of finance is, of course, not new. But with the progressive global integration of capital markets over the last 25 years, and the growing reliance on financial systems of calculation in all facets of social and personal life, the term 'financialization' is some signal that finance is playing a new, more prominent role.
Because of this breadth of impact, the emphasis in the study of financialization is inherently interdisciplinary, such that it draws in critical research in disciplines generally conceived as 'business' based, and other social sciences and humanities too, including geography, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies and heterodox economics.
At the present time, the literature on financialization points to a number of prevalent themes:
- factoring/discounting
- financial derivatives and the increased financialization of capital
- financial instability
- financial reporting and accounting
- financial services and fees
- labour incomes and entitlements
- labour-management relations and financial restraints
- managerial decision making, corporate governance and sharholder value
- private equity and hedge funds
- privatisation/ppp
- superannuation, the state and private pensions
- welfare and privatisation of risk