ABSTRACT
Securities exchanges are core institutions of modern capitalism, almost metonymic with capital markets and their development. But how have these institutions contributed to financialization? In vernacular language, the terms stock exchange and stock market are often used interchangeably. Exchanges are depicted as neutral spaces; they themselves are not perceived as actors in their own right. However, as this chapter argues, this is an outdated understanding of exchanges as these have transformed fundamentally and in so doing have become important agents of and key actors in financialization – both promoting financialization and acting as infrastructures within financialization processes.
