ABSTRACT
This chapter reiterates the book's purposes and summarises its findings. The book compares and contrasts an institutional economics theory of a financial system with more commonly accepted, neoclassical financial theory, offering a synthesis of the two based on Williamson's notions of aligning transaction requirements with governance structure capabilities. The book argues that while neoclassical theory has helped to define important properties of financial transactions and their aggregate effects, its normative orientation leaves aspects of financial activity unexplained. As a result, neoclassical financial theory has less descriptive applicability: less power to explain the details of financing transactions and the financial system's resulting features. Institutional economics is therefore used to elaborate a descriptive theory of financial system activity, explaining a number of additional transaction and system features.
