ABSTRACT
The analysis of financial reforms designed to promote a pro-investment agenda has thus far been conducted with reference to a generic financial capitalist firm. This chapter provides some institutional context to this discussion. We explore some of the ways in which the institutional specificities of different types of financial capitalist firms have implications for the design of a financial regulatory framework, particularly a regulatory framework that wrestles with the “finance-as-servant” proposition. As we shall see in subsequent chapters, the New Deal financial regulatory framework addressed these implications by separating commercial and investment banking via the Glass-Steagall Act. This “compartmentalization” of different types of financial capitalist firms became a prominent characteristic of the financial regulatory framework that prevailed throughout the “golden age” of Keynesian welfare state capitalism.
