ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that financialization changes the way public administrators and local policy-makers in city hall think, behave, and relate to the financial sector. It focuses on the everyday life of financial administration of European local authorities prior to and after the financial crisis. New financial practices of local authorities as illustrated are often presented as rational and purely technical innovations by both public management scholars and practitioners from the field. The adoption of a financialized culture in city hall manifests itself, firstly, in changing rationalities. The main difference to pre-financialized rationalities of public finance lies in the changing self- and market-perceptions by public administrators. Differentiating between a pre- and post-crisis conjuncture, the period leading up to the crisis was marked by the globalization of banks, some of whom developed new financial products aimed at local governments in particular. Financialization changes how public administrators and local policy-makers in city hall think, behave, and relate to the financial sector.
