Survey article on Nordic financialisation in the long run

ABSTRACT

Financialisation has become a new buzz word in social sciences, but, although some of the earliest usages of the concept can be found with economic historians, the recent fad has largely been ignored by economic history. This is true also for the Nordic region. This survey article highlights a handful of studies on financialisation in the Nordic countries in general and within Nordic economic history, in particular, but more importantly, it relates Nordic economic history with a long wave approach to a corresponding stance in financialisation scholarship. It concludes that Nordic economic history is in an advantageous position to both shed light on contemporary financialisation with the help of historical examples. Moreover, it is also able to, through the lens of history, problematise some of the assumptions made within financialisation theory. In this, the Nordic region can provide apt case studies as varieties of financialisation over time and space. All in all, Nordic economic history has barely scratched the surface of this potential.

KEYWORDS:

• Financialisation
• financial hegemony
• financial crisis
• shareholder value orientation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).