In the 21st century, the world of finance has taken on a dramatically increased significance in economic growth, politics, and social and emotional life. As the 2007-2009 global financial crisis plainly showed, over the past 35 years or so, market liberalization has made financial actors, instruments and rationalities increasingly central to the workings of global capitalism. Economic growth is now heavily based on financial, rather than industrial production, a process historical sociologist Greta Krippner (among others, such as Ozgur Orhangazi) has demonstrated in pioneering empirical work (2005) and deep analysis of the political formation of the financial sector’s decades-long expansion in the U.S. economy (2011). … As this brief discussion shows, the process of financialization cuts across disciplinary boundaries. This is also reflected in the transdisciplinary collection of texts included below. …

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