The financialization of capitalism has been marked by the sustained rise of financial profits. In the United States, financial profits as a proportion of total profits rose enormously from the early 1980s to the early 2000s, collapsed during 2007–09, and subsequently recovered, but without reaching previous heights. During this period, the trend of the average rate of profit has been largely flat. The relative rise of financial profits in spite of stagnant average profitability represents a theoretical and empirical conundrum. We will argue that the answer should be sought partly in financial expropriation, but also in public interest rates kept at extraordinarily low levels. In this light, the rise of financial profits represents a vast public subsidy to the financial system characteristic of financialization.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

We propose a novel methodological approach to disentangle the main structural shocks affecting the US labor share of income. We motivate an SVAR model to derive four structural shocks: aggregate demand, labor supply, shocks to wages, and productivity; and quantify the dynamic responses of the labor share to each structural shock. We find substantial differences between the immediate post-war era and the neoliberal period. In order of magnitude, the labor share responded mainly to productivity, aggregate demand, and shocks to wages during the immediate post-war era; whereas shocks to wages, productivity, and to aggregate demand mattered most during the neoliberal era. These effects are statistically significantly different across the two periods only for wage and productivity shocks. Increased (decreased) sensitivity to wage (productivity) shocks during the neoliberal period suggests that the decline in the labor share is mainly driven by the factors that govern wage setting.

The ratio of financial to nonfinancial profits in the U.S. economy has risen greatly during the last four decades, a period often called the financialization of capitalism, but the reasons for the increase are not well understood. This article tackles the issue by developing a model that incorporates the relationships between financial and nonfinancial capitalists that are characteristic of the period of financialization. It is shown that the ratio of financial to nonfinancial profits depends positively on the net interest margin and the noninterest income of banks, but negatively on the general rate of profit, the noninterest expenses of banks, and the ratio of the capital stock to interest-earning assets. Empirical estimation for the United States strongly supports the model and reveals that financial profits have varied mainly with respect to the net interest margin, although non-interest income has also been important.

The wage led aggregate demand hypothesis is examined for the United Kingdom over the period 1971–2007. Existing studies disagree on the aggregate demand regime for the UK, and this appears to be due to differing empirical approaches. Studies relying on equation-by-equation estimation procedures tend to find support for wage led aggregate demand in the UK, while the single study using a multiple time series estimation procedure finds no support for the hypothesis. We test the wage led aggregate demand hypothesis in the UK using VAR models estimated on quarterly data employing an alternative identification strategy based on shocks to real earnings. The results provide support for the wage led aggregate demand hypothesis during the period of study. However, the expansionary effects of higher earnings seem to be limited and relatively short-lived.

In the period following the Great Recession of 2007–2009 the financialization of the US economy reached a watershed characterized by stagnant financial profits, falling proportions of financial sector and mortgage debt, and rising proportion of public debt. The main macroeconomic indicators of financialization in the USA show structural breaks that can be dated around the period of the Great Recession. The reliance of households on the formal financial system appears to have weakened for the first time since the early 1980s. The financial sector has lacked the dynamism of the previous three decades, becoming more reliant on government. The state has increased its own indebtedness and supported large financial institutions via unconventional monetary policy measures. At the same time, state intervention has tightened the regulatory framework for big banks. The future path of financialization in the USA will depend heavily on government policy with regard to state debt and financial regulation, although the scope for boosting financialization is narrow.