Financialisation in context: the case of Italy

This paper aims at analysing the causes and effects of increasing financial accumulation by Italian firms, within a radical Institutional theoretical framework. It will be argued that financialisation can be imputed to the fact that the biggest Italian companies aim to increase their profits through speculation after the cycle of class struggle of the 1970s. It will also be shown that financial accumulation has contributed to the reduction of economic growth and to the increase of income inequalities. Since very few research studies have dealt with the Italian case, this paper fills a gap.