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Financialization and Social Impact Investing

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Financialization as Welfare

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Abstract

This chapter provides a much-needed link between the state, financialization, and financial innovations such as social impact investing. Reviewing empirical literature, Golka shows how current scholarly perspectives either see the state as a constraint or an enabler for the spread of financial innovations. Sketching the development of social impact investing in Britain, Golka shows the limitations of both of these perspectives as the state not only had constraining and enabling influences but also broader ideational ones. However, state influence varies considerably across the numerous practices that are typically subsumed under the impact investing label. The author reveals these differences by analyzing social impact investing through his relational perspective that focuses on the link between financial and nonfinancial actors.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This resonates with findings from derivatives trading, where it has been shown that a market for derivatives only emerged after the development and spread of Black-Scholes-Merton formula for option pricing (MacKenzie 2008; MacKenzie and Millo 2003).

  2. 2.

    I acknowledge that dynamics in other non-market economic actors—households in particular—are, too, of critical importance for the study of financialization. See, for example, Schwartz (2012) on the interplay between the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension systems in the US, individuals’ increased house price speculation, and regulation. That being said, my research question focuses more on the relation between finance, policy and public organizations.

  3. 3.

    This might be particularly true for Michelle Giddens, the CEO of the oldest and largest British SII fund, Bridges Ventures, and daughter of Anthony Giddens.

  4. 4.

    Source: Tom Happold and Kevin Maguire. “Revealed: Brown and Blair’s pact.” The Guardian, June 6th 2003: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2003/jun/06/labour.uk, accessed July 16th 2017

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  1. Sociology of Markets, Organizations and Governance, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Thüringen, Germany

    Philipp Golka

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Golka, P. (2019). Financialization and Social Impact Investing. In: Financialization as Welfare. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06100-5_2

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