Analyzing long-cycle patterns during the twentieth century, this book presents novel findings on how core features of financialization are interconnected across advanced economies.It proposes that, since the late nineteenth century, international macroeconomic policy regimes have favored either capital or labor, giving rise to corresponding cycles of financialization and de-financialization: a liberal phase of financialization (1896–1929), a regulated phase of de-financialization (1946–1973), and a neoliberal phase of financialization (1983–2019). The book argues that these cycles can be explained through underconsumption theory in 13 advanced economies. During financialization, the study suggests inequality created a savings glut that stimulated liquidity for credit expansion, which in turn led to financial instability. Meanwhile, the lack of aggregate demand due to inequality depressed economic growth. By contrast, during the de-financialization of the regulated Bretton Woods era, credit formation did not lead to financial crises, and economic growth was high. Nevertheless, both the liberal and regulated phases succumbed to structural crises caused by internal frictions. These crises transformed not only the economy, but also the political landscape – and at times, even democracy itself. The question remains whether the neoliberal regime is also undergoing an existential crisis, and what lessons we can learn from history to avoid the pitfalls ahead.The book is primarily aimed at scholars and students of global political economy.

Since the global financial crisis in 2008, there has been an elevated interest in private debt and as a macroeconomic variable. In light of the lack of high-frequency data, this study presents a unique monthly time series dataset on credit from and deposits in Swedish commercial banks from 1875 to 2020, covering 1,752 monthly observations and most of Swedish commercial banking history. In a first application, the study examines to what extent money in Sweden has been exogenous, created independently of demand by the central bank, or endogenous, created in response to demand by commercial banks, during different institutional settings. The results, derived via cointegration and impulse-response functions, show that though the relationship between deposits and credit has changed over time, both theories often hold validity simultaneously. While changes in deposits often have had significant impact on credit, the opposite has also been true. There are, however, differences between different regulatory regimes, as well as for different groups of banks.

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.