The financialization of local governments-the case of financial rationality in the management of Norwegian hydroelectric utilities

Bibliographic Data

ID4237741
AuthorsTomas Hostad Løding (0009-0008-4093-2749, University of Bergen, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume18
Issue3
Pages725-743
Publication date2020-12-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocio-Economic Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1475-1461 • E-ISSN: 1475-147X
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/ser/mwy026
OpenAlexW2806462087
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited49

Research on the diminishing distance between global financial markets and traditional nonfinancial actors has increased dramatically over the last decade, most commonly captured in the notion of 'financialization'. This literature has largely been preoccupied with a confluence of structural changes in the state and in the economy that advance the power and scope of financial capital. However, scholars have also provided evidence for cultural change in the framework in which people think about finance and property. Despite the fact that governments have increasingly engaged in heterodox financial market practices, this culturalized analysis has not yet been extended to the public sector. Based on interview data from Norwegian municipal owners of hydroelectric utilities, this article suggests that a rationality attuned to a financialized world economy is disseminating into public sector management. The article concludes by discussing what this means in a sector traditionally governed by a logic rather alien to that of global finance

Business · Economics · Financialization · Market economy · Political science · Rationality · Finance · Housing, Finance, and Neoliberalism · Political and Economic history of UK and US · State Capitalism and Financial Governance

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