Ana Cordeiro Santos

Semi-peripheral financialisation: the case of Portugal

ABSTRACT This paper presents the main features of the financialisation of the Portuguese economy and society by focusing on the relation between the Portuguese financial sector and both external and domestic economic agents. It underlines the role played by the insertion of domestic finance into international financial markets in the financialisation of the country. Based on the Portuguese case, it elaborates on the theoretical understanding of the context-specific nature of semi-peripheral financialisation aimed as a contribution to an emerging body of literature addressing this phase of capitalism.

The ‘materials’ of experimental economics: technological versus behavioral experiments

In the natural sciences there is a general consensus on the epistemic value conferred by the participation of the ‘material world’ in the experimental process of knowledge production. This is no different in experimental economics. However, an inquiry into the epistemic role of the ‘materials’ of economics is still underdeveloped. The present paper is meant as a contribution to this inquiry. Two categories of experiments are identified according to the differentiated role of the ‘materials’ of economics. It is argued that the crucial ‘material’ of technological experiments is the market institution that is tailored in the laboratory to accomplish specific purposes. The crucial ‘material’ of behavioral experiments is instead the participation of the experimental subjects in the production of knowledge of individual and collective behavior. FCC spectrum auctions and ultimatum game experiments illustrate technological and behavioral experiments, respectively. General policy implications are also drawn from each kind of experiment.

Cultivating the self-reliant and responsible individual: the material culture of financial literacy

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the promotion of financial education by many national and international organisations around the world. Drawing on the material culture of financialisation, financial education policy is perceived as part of a broader neoliberal project to extend commodification and (re)construct social and economic reproduction in ways favourable to the financial sector. It argues that, while numerous contradictions inherent in financial education programmes jeopardise the goal of improving individual financial decisions through education, the ideological goal of these initiatives is not compromised. It is the neoliberal cultural project of cultivating self-reliance and individual responsibility at the expense of collective forms of provision across new areas of economic and social life.