Financial capitalism and private equity – a new regime?

Andrew Watt and Béla Galgóczi
Additional contact information
Andrew Watt: Senior Researcher, ETUI
Béla Galgóczi: Senior Researcher, ETUI

Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 2009, vol. 15, issue 2, 189-208

Abstract: This introductory article reviews the key issues involved in the debate about the financialisation of the economy. It briefly describes a number of key features at the level both of national economies, such as the growth of the financial sector, and of individual firms, such as changes in the way profits are used. It discusses their interrelationships with outcomes such as increasing debt levels and rising inequality. The article then focuses on private equity, describing its business model, charting its rise in Europe, and reviewing the available evidence on the performance of the firms taken over by private equity funds and the pay, conditions and job prospects of the workers they employ. The article concludes by considering the implications of the current financial and economic crisis for the possible future development paths of financial capitalism.

Keywords: financialisation; private equity; inequality; debt; financial crisis; activist investors; regulatory reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/102425890901500204 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:treure:v:15:y:2009:i:2:p:189-208

DOI: 10.1177/102425890901500204

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().