ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses financialisation both as a financial phenomenon and as a dominant form of corporate governance in present-day capitalism. It provides the material context of financialisation by describing the size of financial markets and household balance sheets in relation to real economy. The chapter also discusses financialised firm behaviour and shareholder-value ideology that justifies high levels of executive pay. It demonstrates how financialisation has led to increasing inequality by providing data on ten high-income economies. The chapter presents the key aspects of financialised capitalism is the exponential growth and the towering size of financial markets in relation to the real economy. It then discusses the phenomenon of financialisation by providing data on two aspects of the growing size of financial economy in relation to the real economy. In ten high-income economies at varying degrees the size of financial markets has grown significantly to multiples of gross domestic product (GDP).
