Flexible Adjustment in the Age of Financialisation
The Case of Norway
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3131894 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Bent Sofus Tran⊘y (OsloMet – Oslo Metropolitan University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2009 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 360-375 |
| Publication date | 2009-05-06 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Geopolitics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1465-0045 • E-ISSN: 1557-3028 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/14650040902827997 |
| OpenAlex | W2015238622 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
Norway's "Government Pension Fund" – Global (GPF-G) is large (around $400b), portfolio oriented and transparent. It tries to be ethical and has been mooted as a role model for other SWFs. The way the GPF-G is set up undergirds the US vision of a financialised world economy and it even indirectly supports US warfare in Iraq by buying treasury bills. It is also a leader in ethical investments – more than 20 private funds piggyback any divestment decision the GPF-G makes. Understanding the international implications of the GPF-G does not, however, amount to an explanation of why this vehicle was created. This article puts forward the argument that if we want to understand why and how these diverse behaviours cohere into a larger strategic whole, the fund must be interpreted as the continuation and technocratisation of a long established corporatist tradition of foreign economic policy that Peter Katzenstein more than 25 years ago labelled a strategy of flexible adjustment and domestic compensation. There is also a strong need to thank Birger Vik⊘ren of Norges Bank for generously sending me preprints of an article on the fund including a slide set. In several of the descriptive parts of this article I draw more on Vik⊘ren's work than what I myself strictly speaking consider to be ethically acceptable. This should not, however, be taken to mean that Vik⊘ren is responsible for, or in agreement with, any of the political and normative judgments to be found in the present paper. Notes 1. Martin Wolf, 'We Are Living in a Brave New World of State Capitalism', Financial Times, 17 Oct. 2007. 2. Peter Katzenstein, 'The Small European States in the International Economy', in John G. Ruggie (ed.), The Antinomies of Interdependence (New York: Columbia University Press 1983); Peter Katzenstein, Small States in World Markets: Industrial Policy in Europe (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1985). 3. Karl Ove Moene and Michael Wallerstein, 'Social Democratic Labor Market Institutions: A Retrospective Analysis', in Kitschelt et al. (eds.), Continuity and Change in Contemporary Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1997) pp. 231–260. 4. Katzenstein, Small States (note 2) p. 80. 5. Birger Vik⊘ren, 'Norges Bank's Experiences with the Organisation of the Government Pension Fund – Global', in E. Gnan and M. Gudmundsson (eds.), Commodities, Energy and Finance, SUERF Study 2008/2, Vienna, July 2008. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid., p. 72. 8. Ibid. p. 72. 9. Norges Bank, NBIM Quarterly Report Q3 (2008). 10. Peter Hall and Robert Franzese, Jr., 'Mixed Signals: Central Bank Independence, Coordinated Wage Bargaining and European Monetary Union', International Organization 52/3 (1998) pp. 505–536; T. Iversen, 'Wage Bargaining, Central Bank Independence, and the Real Effects of Money', International Organization 52/3 (1998) pp. 469–504
Economic system · Economics · Political economy · Political science · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism
| Citations per year | 0.19 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2023 (14) |
| Highly cited | No |