A critical assessment of the financialisation process and its impact on the US labour force during the great recession

This paper analyses two main features of the financialisation period, namely: 1) the replacement of the 'originate and hold' banking model with the 'originate and distribute' banking model; 2) the securitisation process of structured finance products. These features have produced remarkable changes in the nature and role of banks and financial markets in modern economies. The paper shows that these remarkable changes together with inadequate governance arrangements and relaxed supervision by regulatory authorities have led to an increasing role of financial intermediaries and managers in the economy, which in turn, has had substantial stratification effects on employment and income opportunities of different occupations, gender and ethnic groups of the US labour force during the great recession.