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Trusts and financialization

delete2016-10-02
delete28
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OA
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B
Brooke Harrington *
DOI:10.1093/ser/mww014delete
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Abstract

Abstract

En 中文
This article identifies trusts as a legal structure associated with the global spread of financialization. Although trusts originated in Medieval England, they have acquired a new significance in contemporary finance by virtue of their advantages in terms of profit maximization and capital mobility. As a result, trusts have become common in contemporary structured finance for corporations, in addition to their traditional functions as estate planning and asset protection vehicles for high-net-worth individuals. This article specifies three ways in which the trust structure has facilitated the global spread of financialization: by privileging the rentier-investor within the world economy; by perpetuating a distinctively Anglo-American approach to finance internationally; and by increasing the autonomy of finance vis-a-vis the nation-state. This study shares the primarily descriptive and conceptual intent of Krippner's work on financialization, but extends it in two ways: by comparing trusts to the better-known corporate form of organizing financial activity, and by showing how private capital is implicated in the financialized economy alongside corporate wealth.
Keywords:
financialization
wealth
elites
financial services
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Journal

Socio-Economic Review cover
Socio-Economic Review
IF:
2.6
Papers:
922
Citations:
3.1K

Organization

C
Copenhagen Business School
Scholars:
2.0K
Papers: 2.9K
Citations: 4.9K