Seeing financialization? Stylized facts and the economy multiple

One of the most prominent stylized facts about contemporary capitalism concerns its “financialization.” Like all economic stylized facts, however, facts about financialization are recognized by some commentators and not by others. This article offers one explanation why. It argues that the claims we can make about “the economy” depend upon how we envision that economy in the first place. The economy can be pictured in myriad ways - it is multiple, not singular - and different pictures of it enable the identification of different stylized facts about it. So it is with financialization. The article illustrates this by examining the history of two different traditions of picturing the economy. One - national accounting - increasingly has enabled financialization to be seen; the other - mainstream economics - generally has not.