IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uma/periwp/wp274.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

“Financial” vs. “Real”: An Overview of the Contradictory Role of Finance

Author

Listed:
  • Özgür Orhangazi

Abstract

This paper discusses the contradictory role and place of finance within the post-1980 U.S. economy. A central argument advanced is that the relationship between the real and financial sides of the economy has become increasingly more complicated and contradictory. Therefore, the distinction made between “real” and “financial” problems of the economy needs to be better qualified by taking into account the dynamics between the two. The contradictory relationship is analyzed through a discussion of finance in relation to labor and households, nonfinancial corporations, speculative asset bubbles, and global imbalances. This analysis shows that finance has been in a contradictory unity with the rest of the economy. It has contributed to some of the problems in the economy, while providing solutions to them at other instances, and in the process it shaped and in turn was shaped by the rest of the economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Özgür Orhangazi, 2011. "“Financial” vs. “Real”: An Overview of the Contradictory Role of Finance," Working Papers wp274, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    • Handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp274
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://per.umass.edu/fileadmin/pdf/working_papers/working_papers_251-300/WP274.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ozgür Orhangazi, 2008. "Financialisation and capital accumulation in the non-financial corporate sector:," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(6), pages 863-886, November.
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2014. "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," Annals of Economics and Finance, Society for AEF, vol. 15(2), pages 215-268, November.
    3. Makoto Itoh & Costas Lapavitsas, 1999. "Political Economy of Money and Finance," Palgrave Macmillan Books, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-0-230-37578-9.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2009. "Varieties of Crises and Their Dates," Introductory Chapters, in: This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly, Princeton University Press.
    5. James Crotty, 2000. "Structural Contradictions of the Global Neoliberal Regime," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 32(3), pages 361-368, September.
    6. James Crotty, 2009. "Structural causes of the global financial crisis: a critical assessment of the 'new financial architecture'," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 33(4), pages 563-580, July.
    7. James R. Crotty, 1993. "Rethinking Marxian Investment Theory: Keynes-Minsky Instability, Competitive Regime Shifts and Coerced Investment," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 25(1), pages 1-26, March.
    8. Engelbert Stockhammer, 2012. "Financialization," Chapters, in: Jan Toporowski & Jo Michell (ed.), Handbook of Critical Issues in Finance, chapter 17, pages i-ii, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    9. Andrea Terzi, 2010. "Keynes's uncertainty is not about white or black swans," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 559-566, July.
    10. Mathieu Dufour & Özgür Orhangazi, 2007. "International Financial Crises: Scourge or Blessings in Disguise?," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 39(3), pages 342-350, September.
    11. L. Wray, 2008. "Lessons from the Subprime Meltdown," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 51(2), pages 40-68.
    12. Paul Davidson, 2010. "Black swans and Knight's epistemological uncertainty: are these concepts also underlying behavioral and post-Walrasian theory?," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(4), pages 567-570, July.
    13. Jan Kregel, 2007. "The Natural Instability of Financial Markets," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_523, Levy Economics Institute.
    14. L. Randall Wray, 2009. "Money Manager Capitalism and the Global Financial Crisis," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_578, Levy Economics Institute.
    15. Hahn, TeWhan & Reyes, Mario G., 2004. "On the estimation of stock-market reaction to corporate layoff announcements," Review of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 357-370.
    16. Özgür Orhangazi, 2008. "Financialization and the US Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 12927.
    17. Radhika Desai, 2010. "Consumption demand in Marx and in the current crisis," Research in Political Economy, in: The National Question and the Question of Crisis, pages 101-143, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    18. Aldo Barba & Massimo Pivetti, 2009. "Rising household debt: Its causes and macroeconomic implications--a long-period analysis," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 33(1), pages 113-137, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alberto Botta & Eugenio Caverzasi & Daniele Tori, 2015. "Financial–Real-Side Interactions in an Extended Monetary Circuit with Shadow Banking: Loving or Dangerous Hugs?," International Journal of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(3), pages 196-227, July.
    2. Paolo Piacentini, 2017. "Functional “reversal” and dimensional “decoupling” of “finance” and “the real economy”: a reflection on the “Kaleckian” and “Minskian” limits to over-financialization," Working Papers 7/17, Sapienza University of Rome, DISS.
    3. Giampaolo Gabbi & Elisa Ticci, 2014. "Implications of financialisation for sustainability," Working papers wpaper47, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    4. Gerald Epstein, 2014. "Restructuring finance to promote productive employment," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 11(2), pages 161-170, September.
    5. Mesut Alper GEZER, 2018. "The relationship between financial deepening and economic growth: Bootstrap causality approach for the selected upper middle income countries," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(1(614), S), pages 95-112, Spring.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bill Lucarelli, 2011. "The Economics of Financial Turbulence," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14252.
    2. Engelbert Stockhammer, 2010. "Financialization and the Global Economy," Working Papers wp240, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    3. Hein, Eckhard, 2011. "Distribution, ‘Financialisation’ and the Financial and Economic Crisis – Implications for Post-crisis Economic Policies," MPRA Paper 31180, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Anna Ząbkowicz & Sławomir Czech, 2016. "Revisiting conventional wisdom: does financialization have to leave sovereigns subordinated?," Ekonomia journal, Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw, vol. 47.
    5. Detzer, Daniel, 2019. "Financialization made in Germany: A review," IPE Working Papers 122/2019, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    6. James Crotty, 2010. "The Bonus-Driven “Rainmaker” Financial Firm: How These Firms Enrich Top Employees, Destroy Shareholder Value and Create Systemic Financial Instability (revised)," Working Papers wp209_revised3, Political Economy Research Institute, University of Massachusetts at Amherst.
    7. Photis Lysandrou, 2016. "The colonization of the future: An alternative view of financialization and its portents," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(4), pages 444-472, October.
    8. Annina Kaltenbrunner & Juan Pablo Painceira, 2016. "International and Domestic Financialisation in Middle Income Countries; The Brazilian Experience," Working papers wpaper146, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.
    9. Robert Guttmann, 2015. "The heterodox notion of structural crisis," Review of Keynesian Economics, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 3(2), pages 194-212, April.
    10. Georgios Argitis & Stella Michopoulou, 2011. "Are Full Employment and Social Cohesion Possible Under Financialization?," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(2), pages 139-155, January.
    11. Jose Luis Nicolini Llosa, 2015. "Renta financiera y solvencia mundial," Ensayos de Economía 14143, Universidad Nacional de Colombia Sede Medellín.
    12. Ernest Aigner & Florentin Gloetzl & Matthias Aistleitner & Jakob Kapeller, 2018. "The focus of academic economics: before and after the crisis," ICAE Working Papers 75, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    13. Robert E. Prasch, 2010. "Bankers Gone Wild: The Crash of 2008," Chapters, in: Steven Kates (ed.), Macroeconomic Theory and its Failings, chapter 11, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    14. Eduardo Strachman & Jos Ricardo Fucidji, 2012. "The Current Financial And Economic Crisis Empirical And Methodological Issues," Journal of Advanced Studies in Finance, ASERS Publishing, vol. 3(1), pages 95-109.
    15. Marcelo Madureira Prates, 2013. "Why Prudential Regulation Will Fail to Prevent Financial Crises. A Legal Approach," Working Papers Series 335, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    16. Jitendra Parajuli & Kingsley Haynes, 2013. "An Exploratory Analysis of New Firm Formation in New England," ERSA conference papers ersa13p274, European Regional Science Association.
    17. James Crotty, 2009. "The Bonus-Driven “Rainmaker” Financial Firm: How These Firms Enrich Top Employees, Destroy Shareholder Value and Create Systemic Financial Instability," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2009-13, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    18. Gimet, Céline & Lagoarde-Segot, Thomas & Reyes-Ortiz, Luis, 2019. "Financialization and the macroeconomy. Theory and empirical evidence," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 89-110.
    19. Eckhard Hein, 2012. "Finance-dominated capitalism, re-distribution, household debt and financial fragility in a Kaleckian distribution and growth model," PSL Quarterly Review, Economia civile, vol. 65(260), pages 11-51.
    20. Giampaolo Gabbi & Elisa Ticci, 2014. "Implications of financialisation for sustainability," Working papers wpaper47, Financialisation, Economy, Society & Sustainable Development (FESSUD) Project.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uma:periwp:wp274. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Judy Fogg (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/permaus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.