ABSTRACT
Financialization has heightened the importance of finance for socio-economic life. But different groupings of economists frame the financial sector, and its relationship with the real sector and with the state, very differently. The framing which presumes that free competition will produce the social-optimal outcome has been persistent, and persistently influential, supporting the interests of the financial sector. Although the crisis opened this framing up to public challenge, such that increasing attention, even among central banks, is being paid to socio-economic considerations (e.g. income distribution), addressing financialization continues to be hampered by the view that the financial sector is normally benign.
